Keith T

I was shocked, saddened and took some time to process this when I saw the news of Pieter's passing on FB, yet at the same time relieved that he's no longer in pain. I've had the pleasure of meeting Pieter & Mai a couple of times in Amsterdam and was able to share a couple of meals and bottles of wine with them. I'll always remember his generosity of spirit and enthusiasm for not just airlines but virtually everything in life. Pieter was someone who lived life to the full. RIP dude, hope you're enjoying the vantage point for plane spotting up where you are.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/jetstar-flies-qantas-back-into-beijing/story-e6frg95x-1226093362466 Other media reports have flagged that the new PEK service will be an extension of the existing MEL-SIN JQ7/8 service.

Can you imagine having flown so much full stop? Not sure what Thomas Stuker's lifestyle is like, but it must suck to live like Ryan Bingham.

This reminds me a little of the JQ/QF situation. At least FY appears to be an LCC 'with frills' whereas JQ is way more budget. JQ has completely taken over some of QF's routes, so even if you don't like JQ - tough! At least there's now a new and improved DJ to choose from. Not sure what the yields to MLE are like but a day flight in addition to the current evening flight would be very welcome. You need to catch seaplanes out to some resorts like the W or the Conrad which only operate during day light hours. The existing MH service arrives after the last seaplane service departs, which forces an overnight at the rip off airport hotel or an inconvenient sea boat transfer to the seemingly equally unappealing capital island of Male. MLE is a rather high end leisure route, so I'd imagine that there's enough yield to support a 2nd daily service? The only other viable option to MLE from this end of the world is SQ which operates 2 MLE services a day out of SIN and thus has much friendlier connections. Or maybe even move the MH service to a daytime departure, it'd connect nicely with flights out of Australia whilst still connecting neatly with a fair proportion of North Asian services into KUL.

With the new Berlin airport featuring massively expanded capacity and thus supporting viable long haul flights, and Berlin being the main hub of Air Berlin, I wonder if oneworld members will start focusing on flights to Berlin in favour of Frankfurt or Munich? I suspect the lack of long haul flights into Berlin isn't for the lack of demand, but rather the current infrastructural constraints. The nighttime curfew might lessen the appeal though.

My conversation with @tengkuazmil on Twitter about this: Me: @tengkuazmil: Me: And LOL at the following RT from @tengkuazmil: I'm impressed by how both CEOs of MH and AK personally participate on social media! Makes me think that they really care about their customers to want to go that extra step to reach out to their pax. Virgin Australia has an impressive social media team but John Borghetti himself doesn't engage with social media. QF has a pretty poor, fragmented social media strategy.

GBP1?! For a second I thought that was an error fare!! That screenshot might come in handy the next time any airline files a mistake fare and refuses to honour, as it should give strength to the argument that with low fare sales like these consumers like ourselves are none the wiser as to whether a fare is an error or genuine fare. My partner and I took advantage of the first sale for our Easter trip. As posted above, fares out of Australia are amazing. $3410ish per person, tax inclusive (base fare was $2705 so yes a lot of taxes/YQ!) for MEL-xKUL-BKK-xKUL-MLE-KUL-MEL in J - that's only slightly more than a oneworld Circle Asia in whY! And unlike their usual sales which require 2 pax to travel together, these fares could be ticketed individually. Makes me feel a whole lot better about our splurge on the W Retreat & Spa, Maldives! Easter 2012 might be a world away but when we saw the fares, plans were rapidly drawn up and locked in! Trying to fly the parents down to MEL for Christmas. They were looking at flying JQ or QF Premium Economy out of SIN. MH J fares once again looking v reasonably priced, might take advantage of that again.

The OH and myself were in Perth to take advantage of the Queen's Birthday long weekend. We were booked to leave on Monday evening. Had we been scheduled to leave PER a day earlier, we'd have been caught up in this as all airlines cancelled all their scheduled flights in and out of MEL on Sunday evening. We were booked on DJ which resumed their flights yesterday morning. QF resumed some flights whilst TT flights remained cancelled. We left on the Monday evening redeye which was packed to the rafters, as we were also carrying refugees from the cancelled DJ flights. The flight was unfortunately overbooked, and after noticing a discrepancy in the pax manifest, they had to bump a pax off at the last minute (he was NOT happy!). There's a massive backlog and some people have reported that they might be waiting for a couple more days to get on a flight. DJ flight ops had plotted a routing that avoided the ash cloud which added 35 mins to our flight time. Flights to/from Tasmania remain suspended. The OH has a co-worker in Tas who's currently enjoying his really long weekend there. (unless he's super excited about going back to work and has made arrangements to drive up to Davenport, and hop on to the Spirit of Tasmania across the Bass Straits).

Just ticketed our Easter trip using an amazing MH Business sale fare, MEL-xKUL-BKK-xKUL-MLE-KUL-MEL for a touch under $7000 incl tax for both the OH and myself! Look forward to my first MH long haul experience in a long while... especially as oneworld member-elect! SQ was more than double the cost! Even if we'd used BMI miles for one ticket, the total cost would still be more expensive than what we paid for 2 revenue MH tickets. Taking note of the Wing & Prayer thread, I hope these massive sales are sustainable for the airline in the long run though. Only question is where to credit the flights. They presently have an agreement with Virgin Australia so we've inserted our Velocity numbers into the booking, but I suspect we might end up earning QFF points by Easter. Hopefully we won't be left in the limbo between them terminating current arrangements with Virgin and starting FF linkage with QF! I don't mind crediting to Enrich if worse comes to worst but would prefer not to have miles orphaned in yet another FFP, and Enrich's 3 year hard expiry isn't appealing.

That's very interesting, thanks for sharing Uncle Pieter! It sounds like there could be a detrimental effect to MH joining the alliance if none of the other major players on the Kangaroo Route commence services to KUL. In the short term, there will be codeshares. I'd love to see a QF code on MH flights to AMS - somewhere that's currently being served only via LHR. But for the alliance to work for MH, I think one of the other majors on the Kangaroo route should re-commence services to KUL. People don't think of codeshares when they book flights when the marketing carrier doesn't at least fly part of the route. Also, on the North American side of the equation, the extra feed from AA at LAX should help MH's North American ops. Can't remember if MH still flies EWR but I don't think AA has much of a presence at EWR.

Yeah I was thinking that when SQ allowed VAust to use the Virgin brand outside Australia, they didn't allow it for nothing in return. Though John Borghetti is quick to can the idea that the 2 events are linked. Cooperation between airlines from different alliances not uncommon. QF has a rather comprehensive codeshare agreement with AF for flights between Paris and Australia, much to the consternation of CX.

Last night's episode of Lateline Business alludes to rifts between Alan Joyce and the Board of QF. IMO, the sooner they get rid of him the better. I might know very little about running an airline but things have really taken a downturn since he took over the airline. Been hearing some questionable maintenance practises at QF, and if true, they're very worrying. I'm sure 99% of these rumours are exaggerated and I won't repeat them here because I can't verify these myself, but you can't help noticing a pattern of engineering issues with QF aircraft which means there's some substance to the rumours. He's waged war on engineers, pilots, cabin crew, and Platinum frequent flyers. How i wish John Borghetti, who made QF such a great airline to fly in the 2000s, became CEO! Alan Joyce doesn't seem to get that the kind of LCC management practises that worked well at JQ do not necessarily apply for a premium airline which requires INVESTMENT in products and services rather than cuts, cuts and more cuts to try to squeeze out a profit! And to trash his own airline in public is madness! /Signed: A bitter but still trying to be loyal QF Platinum

Yes I think QF or BA will stand to gain a lot more from their new OW hub in Asia if they commence services to KUL. After all, an alliance is all about synergies of the type you mention. If QF only wanted to codeshare they can already do so without having MH in oneworld (as they're already doing with OZ, BR, VN and a few others). Also anything that keeps BA in Australia would be great. Overall I'm happy to see that OW has another major hub in Asia. KUL is one of my favourite cities alongside HKG. I remember the days when OW only has HKG... how things have changed since! I look forward to flying with MH when they're operating under the OW banner! (or even sooner if QF develops FF links with them in the lead up to formal membership!)

Sometime last year I came across rumours that BA15/16 will be re-routed LHR-KUL-MEL. There are also parallel rumours that BA15/16 and BA9/10 will both terminate and turnaround in SIN/BKK, which would mean BA leaving Australia entirely, transferring all Australian bound pax to QF. I am not sure how credible these rumours are. But in light of MH joining OW, I think BA15/16 going LHR-KUL-Australia has more credence. However I'm not convinced that they're going to re-route the service to MEL (which has a history of poor yields for BA). Rumours about BA ceasing to serve Australia altogether have been around for a long time. It's not the most efficient of services for them yieldwise, and they're seen as serving Australia for historical and prestige reasons. An alliance partner in MH might be just the trigger for BA's exit from Australia - this could mean a LHR-KUL-LHR service, along with BA passing its Australia bound pax to its alliance partners at KUL/SIN/BKK. I think QF and BA will still maintain their SIN hub operations, as there's a lot of O/D traffic with SIN especially at the pointy end. But I can see either of them, more likely BA, re-starting KUL services to optimise their new alliance partner.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing all that, KC!