23 September 2012

Surely Canberrans are more interested in direct flights *out* of Canberra?

| johnboy
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Chief Minister Gallager is promising more of the same on inneffectual efforts to get direct international flights to Canberra airport.

She’s also promising to spend more of your money on the enrichment of hotel owners. Because we just can’t get enough of that stuff:

If re-elected in 2012, ACT Labor will continue working to establish direct international flights into Canberra in partnership with the Canberra Airport and tourism industry

Once established, ACT Labor will provide $1.8 million over the next four years through targeted marketing campaigns to encourage more international visitors into Canberra.

12 years in government wasn’t long enough to get this sorted. But four more years? That’ll do it!

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Canberra International Airport…….biggest joke in aviation in Australia. Cairns International and Coolangatta Airports each have more than double Canberra’s flight movements and Canberra will always remain an international outpost regardless of the silliness of local politicians and airport owners.

troll-sniffer said :

I’m sure many an airline actuary (or perhaps even a lowly accountant) has divided the number of Canberrans flying out to potential international destinations by the number of those same destinations and come to the conclusion that a half-full plane maketh not money.

My suspicion is that even to the most visited overseas destinations, such as Fiji, NZ, Bali, Bangkok and Singapore would each barely rate 50 Canberrans a day in high season and half that number the rest of the time.

Even if the numbers were there the added expense of allocating a plane to a boutique routing, together with government cost recovery, would make fares more expensive than the discounted options through the hubs. Fine for those of greater means or for whom the employer foots the bill, but I’m always happy for a bit of inconvenience if the price is right.

True unless we budget and use old DC3’s via Darwin. Offer free beer and snacks.

troll-sniffer10:02 am 25 Sep 12

I’m sure many an airline actuary (or perhaps even a lowly accountant) has divided the number of Canberrans flying out to potential international destinations by the number of those same destinations and come to the conclusion that a half-full plane maketh not money.

My suspicion is that even to the most visited overseas destinations, such as Fiji, NZ, Bali, Bangkok and Singapore would each barely rate 50 Canberrans a day in high season and half that number the rest of the time.

Even if the numbers were there the added expense of allocating a plane to a boutique routing, together with government cost recovery, would make fares more expensive than the discounted options through the hubs. Fine for those of greater means or for whom the employer foots the bill, but I’m always happy for a bit of inconvenience if the price is right.

For international flights I can see Canberra NZ might be viable especially in the Ski season as many people in Canberra and the area Ski. Also a direct fright to Asia might be ok like Singapore. Cant see it being a daily flight though and the point is if you havnt got daily service than its not that useful for business travellers.

I’ve never really had issues getting domestic flights out of Canberra or back for that matter. Obviously Darwin, Perth and Adelaide flights are often fully booked though on Qantas, However I noted last time I came back from Darwin on the direct flight, that a large number were flying onto melbourne.

So I see some sense in scheduling flights that say depart Adelaide to NZ via Canberra.
You could in theory do a Canberra-Singapore flight too with Melbourne and sydney connections. As it is now many people fly to Sydney for an international flight so why not fly to Canberra to connect to your international flight.

Katy pandering to Snowtown ….. blah as if.

JimCharles said :

I think you missed the OP’s point.
If there are no incoming flights, there won’t be a plane on the ground for the outward flight….nothing to do with how big the planes are.
It’s got to be a two-way street for an airline…you need the demand both ways, not just people wanting to get out.

That’s not true either, QF operates Dallas-Fort Worth to Brisbane, but does not offer a BNE to DFW flight. (OK I’ll admit BNE is a tech stop on the way to SYD, but passengers can still get on and off at BNE which makes it a legitimate DFW-BNE flight).

Just because a plane arrives in a certain city, does not means it need to fly back to where it came from.

harvyk1 said :

emd said :

If there’s no international-sized planes coming into Canberra, there won’t be any going out.

What you talking about? A320’s and B737 are the most commonly used aircraft in trans-Tasman ops. Both of which fly to CBR on a daily basis (well the B737 at least, no A320’s since tiger pulled the pin).

Also the B767, which QF flys up from Melbourne every few days was for a while the most commonly used type of plane on trans-Atlantic crossings.

I believe the current terminal can handle A330’s without breaking too much of a sweat and they are probably one of the most commonly used international ops aircraft on the market right now (certainly used for most AU-OS destinations which might be flown out of CBR). About the only aircraft we can’t take here at this point in time is an A380…

I think you missed the OP’s point.
If there are no incoming flights, there won’t be a plane on the ground for the outward flight….nothing to do with how big the planes are.
It’s got to be a two-way street for an airline…you need the demand both ways, not just people wanting to get out.

Given there are still people here I think we can guess enough people come back 😉

emd said :

If there’s no international-sized planes coming into Canberra, there won’t be any going out.

What you talking about? A320’s and B737 are the most commonly used aircraft in trans-Tasman ops. Both of which fly to CBR on a daily basis (well the B737 at least, no A320’s since tiger pulled the pin).

Also the B767, which QF flys up from Melbourne every few days was for a while the most commonly used type of plane on trans-Atlantic crossings.

I believe the current terminal can handle A330’s without breaking too much of a sweat and they are probably one of the most commonly used international ops aircraft on the market right now (certainly used for most AU-OS destinations which might be flown out of CBR). About the only aircraft we can’t take here at this point in time is an A380…

Madam Cholet11:37 am 24 Sep 12

Having just returned from a conference on the Gold Coast for my sins, I would just like to see more direct flights anywhere. Adelaide and Perth are other good examples. We can’t even get Canberra folk to other major cities, so why should we be prioritizing international destinations? Four hours or more to schlep up to the Gold Coast is ridiculous, having to go to Adelaide the day before your meeting is ridiculous as otherwise you may have to go via SYDNEY!!!! is ridiculous, not being able to get more than one direct flight to Perth unless you want to be getting in to bed after midnight is ridiculous.

Jeez, this is Canberra, the home of the Federal Government. We should be the easiest place to get to and from.

Yea flights out are the priority lol. But truthfully no overseas tourists wants to come to Canberra. Canberra is a domestic market only and if they want more people here improve the hotel situation the only decent hotel here is the Hyatt and even that is below standards for a 5 star hotel these days. And talk of rail the first rail network to go in should be an airport to civic fast speed link. Basically get off the plane grab your bags get on the train and be in civic in 5 minutes.

There appears to be an enormous amount of straw clutching going on in Labor HQ.

Desperation….

Now THIS is a waste of money.

If there’s no international-sized planes coming into Canberra, there won’t be any going out.
Meanwhile though, public transport and schools and lack of GPs and hospital emergency room wait times and our super-sized carbon footprint and housing shortages…

I wonder which way Snow and Byron will vote now?

What needs to be changed before any international airlines even express an interest in setting up is the process whereby passengers are immigration cleared at Canberra Airport. The old approach of being forced to arrive more than 3 hours before departure time, in order to get a government-provided shuttle bus back to the Immigration regional office in Braddon to be passport-checked and cleared for exit, was just way too cumbersome. There’s already little difference time-wise (when transit to and from the airport, check-in, security, boarding and baggage collection are taken into account) between bussing or flying between Canberra and Sydney, so given the generally higher prices that would be charged for intl flights ex Cbr, most people would still take the Sydney option anyway unless the clearance process is brought into line with every other intl airport in Australia.

I would rather be able to get a decently priced flight to Adelaide, Hobart or Perth. At the moment it is cheaper for me to hop on the bus to Sydney and get a flight from there. When I went to Hobart over Easter, it was over $100 cheaper for me to bus to Melbourne, stay in Melbourne the night then fly from Melbourne to Hobart than it was to fly to Hobart direct.

Admittedly, there isn’t much the ACT government can do to reduce prices/increase frequency of domestic flights. Still, I would prefer to be able to get a direct flight to any Australian city for a decent price before flying internationally.

pink little birdie3:48 pm 23 Sep 12

surely the people his should be targeting in the international student market for direct flights in and out of Canberra followed by NZ for the Government departments

It would help if we got actual public transport going to and from the airport…

You’d think Andrew Barr would have had the sense to cloak his words in a little PR magic – but no, New Zealanders were described as simple units of economic advantage to Canberra. If I heard myself described as such from across the Ditch, I’d be vowing not to spend money in Andrew “No Relationship With New Zealand” Barr’s patch. Note to ACT Labor: beancounting and managerialism are just part of the government mix, not the whole bazooka. (Did Rudd’s acned teenage ministerial advisers all migrate to Katie and Andrews’ offices following his downfall? Looking like it!)

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