Re: East Coast Very High Speed Train Scoping Study

["Dave Proctor" <daproc@spambait.ozemail.com.au>]

"Matthew Geier" <matthew@mail.usyd.edu.au> wrote in message
9bjlm7$ola$1@spacebar.ucc.usyd.edu.au">news:9bjlm7$ola$1@spacebar.ucc.usyd.edu.au...

>  Id say give the Australian air market a year or so and the prices will
have
> to rise. If nothing else, they have to cover the cost of the fuel those
planes
> use, and with some of those fares, they can't be far of the base price of
the
> fuel to move those passengers. Then they actually have to maintain the
things...

Which is why Qantas and Ansett (despite the recent problems) will come out
better off (if AN can resurrect their image).

QF are getting 300 seat A330's for intercapital traffic, AN are getting
767-300's from parent companies. These are rather large aircraft, and taking
into account the normal everyday run-of-the-mill traveller will still have
some seats left over (this has always been part of the QF strategy). These
seats are then off-loaded at bargain-basement prices, at the same time
spruiking the advantages of the frequent flyer program.

After all, a plane that is going to fly with 250 bodies is not going to cost
much more to fly with 300 bodies, if those extra 50 seats have been sold at
AUD50 each (that is an extra AUD2500 in revenue for that flight). This is
something that Impulse and VirginBlue do not have. (And if the safety record
re: Impulse was known, they would have almost NO passengers).

Once they get people locked into FF programs, then that will dictate future
travel patterns. If someone has 15,000 points, and only needs 20,000 for a
return from SYD to BNE, and a one-way from SYD to BNE is worth 1000 points,
who are they going to fly with the next few times?

I think this is one of the reasons Qantas has changed their program rules,
in order to encourage people to try out the service.

Back onto rail, all of this can only be detrimental to rail, as it reduces
any opportunity for a viable point-to-point market. Rail will instead have
to be looking to the land-cruise market,which is currently served (rather
well) by the Indian-Pacific, The Ghan, The Queenslander, The Sunlander, etc.

Dave