Airport lands second international carrier with Doha service

Southerly_views said :

The proposed Qatar Canberra service compares favourably with the existing Sydney services offered by Emirates and Etihad. We fly to Middle East and African destinations either individually or together as a family and have always struggled to complete the painful Canberra/Sydney/Canberra connections in terms of logistics, time taken and cost. We have tried flying and renting cars to get to Sydney but the air travel cost or rental charges are still substantial when compared to the other legs of the trip. Also there are often long incoming customs transit times in Sydney which can play a big part in the overall time taken to travel between Sydney and Canberra plus landing delays, missed flight connections or traffic delays around Sydney.

I have just compared some of the Qatar fares originating from Canberra to the corresponding Sydney fares and they are in most cases on par with little monetary penalty for the Canberra leg. Depending on which dates and destinations you choose some add an extra few hours of transit time, although again most travel/transit times are close and within 1-2 hours of existing Emirates and Etihad services. The Qatar option would allow us to eliminate the extra domestic airfares or car rental charges we have paid previously and better consolidate our total travel times when departing from Canberra. Layover times in the Middle East for most, but not all connections are short.

If we can go through customs in Canberra we are not dragging our luggage between terminals or car rental in Sydney. Money-wise Qatar’s Canberra connection will significantly decrease our costs and effort on CBR/SYD/CBR for the first and final legs of the trip. If Qatar continues to carry through over time by maintaining price and scheduling (unlike Singapore Airlines) then we will be using the service regularly.

There are not many places in the Middle East Qatar is flying to at present.
https://qatarairways.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008258048-Suspension-of-Flights-to-Kingdom-of-Saudi-Arabia-UAE-Egypt-and-Kingdom-of-Bahrain

And they never fly to Tel Aviv either.

The proposed Qatar Canberra service compares favourably with the existing Sydney services offered by Emirates and Etihad. We fly to Middle East and African destinations either individually or together as a family and have always struggled to complete the painful Canberra/Sydney/Canberra connections in terms of logistics, time taken and cost. We have tried flying and renting cars to get to Sydney but the air travel cost or rental charges are still substantial when compared to the other legs of the trip. Also there are often long incoming customs transit times in Sydney which can play a big part in the overall time taken to travel between Sydney and Canberra plus landing delays, missed flight connections or traffic delays around Sydney.

I have just compared some of the Qatar fares originating from Canberra to the corresponding Sydney fares and they are in most cases on par with little monetary penalty for the Canberra leg. Depending on which dates and destinations you choose some add an extra few hours of transit time, although again most travel/transit times are close and within 1-2 hours of existing Emirates and Etihad services. The Qatar option would allow us to eliminate the extra domestic airfares or car rental charges we have paid previously and better consolidate our total travel times when departing from Canberra. Layover times in the Middle East for most, but not all connections are short.

If we can go through customs in Canberra we are not dragging our luggage between terminals or car rental in Sydney. Money-wise Qatar’s Canberra connection will significantly decrease our costs and effort on CBR/SYD/CBR for the first and final legs of the trip. If Qatar continues to carry through over time by maintaining price and scheduling (unlike Singapore Airlines) then we will be using the service regularly.

bigred said :

I cannot see myself using it. My psychological well being does not cope with being jammed into a long metal tube for 15 hours, with the prospect of another 7 or 8 hours commencing soon after. I prefer what Singapore Airlines offer, especially now that they are talking about tweaking the timings.

Add a couple more hours because it goes to Sydney first.

Chris Steel MLA said :

It appears like the proposed Canberra to Qatar route has much shorter stopovers for connections to Europe than the Singapore Capital Express route which often involves a long wait at Changi airport.

That is because Singapore’s route is mostly optimised for connections to Asia and London which has multiple flights a day, unlike most other European destinations. And the timing changes will include even more Asian connections.

I cannot see myself using it. My psychological well being does not cope with being jammed into a long metal tube for 15 hours, with the prospect of another 7 or 8 hours commencing soon after. I prefer what Singapore Airlines offer, especially now that they are talking about tweaking the timings.

It appears like the proposed Canberra to Qatar route has much shorter stopovers for connections to Europe than the Singapore Capital Express route which often involves a long wait at Changi airport.

Unless they have premium economy I am not interested.