Qantas rejigs flights to US to bolster market share
Jamie Freed

MELBOURNE: - Qantas will look to cut costs in its international division by retiming some of its flights to the US so that its aircraft spend more time in the air and less on the ground.

It also plans to bolster its dominant position in the trans-Pacific market by adding more flights from Melbourne to Los Angeles and Sydney to Santiago.

The airline has said it will cut $1 billion - or one-third - of the controllable costs in its international division over the next three years. Only about $200 million of those savings have been outlined to date.

Qantas International chief executive Simon Hickey said the airline was introducing a new approach to aircraft utilisation to take advantage of market opportunities. The company has already increased the hours flown by its A380s and its 737s in the domestic division through schedule changes this year, such as retiming its Melbourne-Dubai-London flights.

"Aircraft are one of our biggest fixed costs, so we continue to look for opportunities across our network to generate revenue and increase services for customers," Mr Hickey said.

The adjustments to the trans-Pacific schedule announced on Friday will result in one of its two Sydney-Los Angeles flights shifting from a morning to an evening departure. Qantas will also add three weekly flights from Melbourne to Los Angeles departing in the evening on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday from January 21.

Full story: http://www.theage.com.au/business/aviation/qantas-rejigs-flights-to-us-to-bolster-market-share-20140822-10789g.html


-- The Age 2014-08-22

I have no confidence in management at QANTAS.

QANTAS could rejig the airline to not force its long term customers onto other airlines by actually flying where we want to go like Melbourne into Fiji,Singapore or Thailand.