Qantanomics, The Economics of Cancelled flights and more.

Qantanomics is where “The Spirit of Australia” look after the bonus pool with no regard for  “those annoying people who take up valuable space on the aircraft”.

As previously indicated, I was rolled by Qantas due to “Industrial Action” but that did not seem to stack up this morning.  Qantas fly two direct flights from Melbourne to Canberra each week day before 9 AM.  The first flight (7:20AM) is a 767-300 and the second (8:30AM) is a 737-800.  Based on their own data, that would give you somewhere in the vicinity of 390 to 420 seats in a combination of Business and Economy seating configurations.  On Tuesday(25/10/2011), Qantas  then cancelled the first flight and ran a full 737-800 on the second flight.  This would indicate that they calculated they were taking a bath on the seat yield across the two flights so conveniently dropped the first flight and blamed the ongoing industrial action for the cancellation.  Good one, you must think we are fools.

The other side of Quantanomics is the yield that can be extracted before flyer start drifting access to Virgin Australia.  Since July I ave flown to Canberra every week and in August, I had a side trip to Brisbane.  In this period, I have spent over $12,500 and on my present flying regime, I will not break out of  the  entry level flyer status, Silver flying every week till Christmas so looks like the investment in the Qantas Club was a necessary requirement!

Tired using the iPhone app to check in.  I did and see what happened:

When I asked about this in the Lounge, the response was the problem must be with my phone – checked that, no problem, wrong app – checked that, no problem.  Ahh well it could not possibly be our (Qantas) fault as you were checked in successfully.  I hope the people who manage aircraft safety do not work on the iPhone app’s!