News & Discussion: Adelaide Airport & Airlines

[VinyTapestry849]

I'm also surprised that Emirates hasn't made any progress on returning to Adelaide since it left, especially considering the evidence we're provided suggests that Adelaide is doing as well, if not better, in terms of passenger numbers than it was pre-COVID.

Emirates announced their return this year in February bro, where you been lol?

They resume in October 28th with a 777-200 LR

[dbl96]

Forget London, that market is served by emirates and Qatar

Also forget Shanghai and Beijing, that market is served by China southern and Singapore airlines.

The ones on your list which have a reasonable chance of happening are Christchurch & dehli. We won’t be getting a Los Angeles route for a long long time. United airlines always start off new Oceania route with a direct flight to San Francisco purely because of the large business market there.

Idk about Tokyo, Malinauskas Went to Japan last year, and was flatly refused a direct flight when he asked the Japanese airlines. There is not enough traffic

Bangkok and Phuket are easily reachable by Singapore airlines but even if the passenger wants a cheaper alternative if they can just transit via Perth and get there under $1000.

I expect United Airlines to make wind in Adelaide before 2029, they have a large 787 order and have very much emphasised their goal to increase Their Oceania destinations. United Airlines imo is the likely next Airline to come to Adelaide

The US based Marriott hotel group’s new hotel at GPO says he expects United Airlines to arrive at Adelaide within five years too

Yeah, the biggest role Emirates and Qatar have in Adelaide is providing through connections to Europe. In any event, direct flights to London at this stage are still pretty experimental. Even where they exist, I expect the majority of passengers still opt for one stop flights considering the price and enormous amount of time in the cabin. I can't see Qantas trying it from Adelaide any time soon anyway. They don't seem to want anything to do with Adelaide.

I'm also skeptical about getting service to Shanghai or Beijing, but more because I suspect Adelaide Airport will want to sure up China Southern's numbers at this stage rather than allow them to be cannibalised. Guangzhou is in the far south of China and not particularly well located to serve the bulk of the population. Shanghai is more centrally located from that perspective. The usefulness of a Guangzhou is a bit marginal anyway in the event we have a connection to Hong Kong, as the two cities are extremely close to each other. Obviously there are some advantages to having a direct connection into the "mainland" from the perspective that you can avoid dealing with the Hong Kong/mainland customs barrier, but it doesn't really increase the geographical range of service from Adelaide Airport by much.

Elsewhere in Australia, especially from Melbourne and Sydney, there are very high service level to China. Sydney has regular direct connections to 15 cities on the mainland, some are multiple times per day. Obviously demand is considerably lower in Adelaide than in the bigger cities, but considering just how high service levels are in the other cities, you would think proportionately we could hope for a direct connection to one more city, most sensibly Shanghai. A China Eastern connection would mean not only better connections to China itself but also bargain onwards connections to Europe and elsewhere. That said, China Southern will achieve that to a large extent, although their price point seems to be slightly more premium than China Eastern.

We definitely have a good chance with Christchurch, and I think Adelaide Airport has said as much.

Delhi is a tricky one, because even though demand is high, international flights to India are few and far between. From what I understand, the Indian government has put in place restrictions on landing slots for most foreign airlines to protect the local airline industry. The problem is, there aren't a lot of local airlines, and for the most part they aren't developed to the point that they have big international networks. There's a chance that this will change in the future, as Air India seems to be trying to develop a major international hub in Delhi, similar to what has happened in the Gulf states. Delhi is in quite a good location to be an international hub, but we will see how that goes.

At this stage, everyone is fighting for the small number of flights that do exist into India. In massive contrast to the situation with China discussed above, Melbourne and Sydney each only have direct connections to 2 Indian cities, and Perth and Brisbane have none. I think we are long way down on the list for Delhi, even though demand is high, demand is higher elsewhere without being served.

[VinyTapestry849]

Yeah, the biggest role Emirates and Qatar have in Adelaide is providing through connections to Europe. In any event, direct flights to London at this stage are still pretty experimental. Even where they exist, I expect the majority of passengers still opt for one stop flights considering the price and enormous amount of time in the cabin. I can't see Qantas trying it from Adelaide any time soon anyway. They don't seem to want anything to do with Adelaide.

I'm also skeptical about getting service to Shanghai or Beijing, but more because I suspect Adelaide Airport will want to sure up China Southern's numbers at this stage rather than allow them to be cannibalised. Guangzhou is in the far south of China and not particularly well located to serve the bulk of the population. Shanghai is more centrally located from that perspective. The usefulness of a Guangzhou is a bit marginal anyway in the event we have a connection to Hong Kong, as the two cities are extremely close to each other. Obviously there are some advantages to having a direct connection into the "mainland" from the perspective that you can avoid dealing with the Hong Kong/mainland customs barrier, but it doesn't really increase the geographical range of service from Adelaide Airport by much.

Elsewhere in Australia, especially from Melbourne and Sydney, there are very high service level to China. Sydney has regular direct connections to 15 cities on the mainland, some are multiple times per day. Obviously demand is considerably lower in Adelaide than in the bigger cities, but considering just how high service levels are in the other cities, you would think proportionately we could hope for a direct connection to one more city, most sensibly Shanghai. A China Eastern connection would mean not only better connections to China itself but also bargain onwards connections to Europe and elsewhere. That said, China Southern will achieve that to a large extent, although their price point seems to be slightly more premium than China Eastern.

I would respectfully disagree with that point. I think Cathay and China Southern are all Adelaide will ever need for the Chinese market. China Southern has a humongous network of no less than an impressive 130 domestic Chinese destinations, all the big cities and rural provinces with its hub in Guangzhou. China Southerns range is huge. If an Adelaide family wants to go to Shanghai, all they need to do is have a short 4hr layover in Guangzhou and hop on a flight to Shanghai Pudong. No need for China Eastern or Air China. Its also more comfortable to have a stop over then be stuck in a plane all the way from Adelaide to shanghai or beijing. China Eastern is struggling to maintain Perth seasonally, let alone Adelaide.

If I was Chinese and wanted to go to the mainland and had to choose between Cathay and China Southern, I'd just go China Southern. It's just less hassle and you're going directly into China rather than Hong Kong, and I can go literally almost anywhere in China from Guangzhou, its a good deal.

We definitely have a good chance with Christchurch, and I think Adelaide Airport has said as much.

Yes, once Air New Zealand organises itself, hope to see that come to fruition

Delhi is a tricky one, because even though demand is high, international flights to India are few and far between. From what I understand, the Indian government has put in place restrictions on landing slots for most foreign airlines to protect the local airline industry. The problem is, there aren't a lot of local airlines, and for the most part they aren't developed to the point that they have big international networks. There's a chance that this will change in the future, as Air India seems to be trying to develop a major international hub in Delhi, similar to what has happened in the Gulf states. Delhi is in quite a good location to be an international hub, but we will see how that goes.

At this stage, everyone is fighting for the small number of flights that do exist into India. In massive contrast to the situation with China discussed above, Melbourne and Sydney each only have direct connections to 2 Indian cities, and Perth and Brisbane have none. I think we are long way down on the list for Delhi, even though demand is high, demand is higher elsewhere without being served.

Delhi would be very popular, unfortunate the Indian government do that. We would be very much down the list of importance for a delhi route, although the popularity of the SYD-ADL-DEL during the pandemic apparently surprised Qantas, it was packed.

[VinyTapestry849]

9news reporting yesterday the premier will have a long awaited high-level meeting with Qantas’s CEO Vanessa Hudson soon. Pushing to have international flights back to quote “Asia”, also floating the idea of the United States apparently.

Hopefully, Qantas are considering it. It would work hand in hand with the brand new Qantas lounges they are building in the terminal.

fingers crossed

[Jaymz]

9news reporting yesterday the premier will have a long awaited high-level meeting with Qantas’s CEO Vanessa Hudson soon. Pushing to have international flights back to quote “Asia”, also floating the idea of the United States apparently.

Hopefully, Qantas are considering it. It would work hand in hand with the brand new Qantas lounges they are building in the terminal.

fingers crossed

Well you'd think Qantas wouldn't be silly enough to take on SIA for the ADL-SIN route, as it would fail spectacularly. It would be another destination.

Japan is one that I think might be possible, maybe something other than Tokyo would be nice...... Kyoto or Osaka would make a nice point of difference but maybe not so commercially viable

[VinyTapestry849]

Well you'd think Qantas wouldn't be silly enough to take on SIA for the ADL-SIN route, as it would fail spectacularly. It would be another destination.

Japan is one that I think might be possible, maybe something other than Tokyo would be nice...... Kyoto or Osaka would make a nice point of difference but maybe not so commercially viable

Idk, I doubt japan. That would require one of the a330's, and they barely have enough to cover all the current routes rn.

[dbl96]

I'm also skeptical about getting service to Shanghai or Beijing, but more because I suspect Adelaide Airport will want to sure up China Southern's numbers at this stage rather than allow them to be cannibalised. Guangzhou is in the far south of China and not particularly well located to serve the bulk of the population. Shanghai is more centrally located from that perspective. The usefulness of a Guangzhou is a bit marginal anyway in the event we have a connection to Hong Kong, as the two cities are extremely close to each other. Obviously there are some advantages to having a direct connection into the "mainland" from the perspective that you can avoid dealing with the Hong Kong/mainland customs barrier, but it doesn't really increase the geographical range of service from Adelaide Airport by much.

Elsewhere in Australia, especially from Melbourne and Sydney, there are very high service level to China. Sydney has regular direct connections to 15 cities on the mainland, some are multiple times per day. Obviously demand is considerably lower in Adelaide than in the bigger cities, but considering just how high service levels are in the other cities, you would think proportionately we could hope for a direct connection to one more city, most sensibly Shanghai. A China Eastern connection would mean not only better connections to China itself but also bargain onwards connections to Europe and elsewhere. That said, China Southern will achieve that to a large extent, although their price point seems to be slightly more premium than China Eastern.

I would respectfully disagree with that point. I think Cathay and China Southern are all Adelaide will ever need for the Chinese market. China Southern has a humongous network of no less than an impressive 130 domestic Chinese destinations, all the big cities and rural provinces with its hub in Guangzhou. China Southerns range is huge. If an Adelaide family wants to go to Shanghai, all they need to do is have a short 4hr layover in Guangzhou and hop on a flight to Shanghai Pudong. No need for China Eastern or Air China. Its also more comfortable to have a stop over then be stuck in a plane all the way from Adelaide to shanghai or beijing. China Eastern is struggling to maintain Perth seasonally, let alone Adelaide.

If I was Chinese and wanted to go to the mainland and had to choose between Cathay and China Southern, I'd just go China Southern. It's just less hassle and you're going directly into China rather than Hong Kong, and I can go literally almost anywhere in China from Guangzhou, its a good deal.

I mean, a connection to Guangzhou is better than nothing, but there is a reason that other airlines have chosen to serve other direct China-Australia routes besides Guangzhou to X. Direct flights are more convenient than layovers, especially when the connecting flight is a relatively short jump like Guangzhou-Shanghai or Adelaide-Sydney. That's the whole reason we are discussing the benefit of attracting more direct flights. Sure, it would be fairly convenient to fly to Shanghai with a stopover in Guangzhou, but by the same virtue, it would be more or less equally convenient to fly there with a stopover in Sydney.

China is a massive market, and it is geographically the size of a continent. In the long term it makes sense to pursue connections to multiple cities to get a better geographic coverage of service. On that point though, I don't think we should be prioritising it over first getting links to other currently unserved areas of the globe, like North America for example, but down the track it is a worthwhile aspiration.

On your point about Hong Kong, you are right, but in recent times, Hong Kong has been trying to make their airport more convenient for servicing the surrounding region outside of Hong Kong itself. They now have direct ferries to the airport from various nearby places in the mainland including Guangzhou, and I believe you can go through immigration when you board the ferry, rather than messing about entering and exiting Hong Kong. https://www.hongkongairport.com/en/tran ... nsfer.page

9news reporting yesterday the premier will have a long awaited high-level meeting with Qantas’s CEO Vanessa Hudson soon. Pushing to have international flights back to quote “Asia”, also floating the idea of the United States apparently.

Hopefully, Qantas are considering it. It would work hand in hand with the brand new Qantas lounges they are building in the terminal.

fingers crossed

If there is extra demand on the Singapore route, we would be better off filling it with Scoot or Jetstar rather than Qantas. At least that would provide low cost options for international travel from Adelaide. What would direct Qantas service to Singapore offer us that we don't already have with Singapore Airlines?

[VinyTapestry849]

If there is extra demand on the Singapore route, we would be better off filling it with Scoot or Jetstar rather than Qantas. At least that would provide low cost options for international travel from Adelaide. What would direct Qantas service to Singapore offer us that we don't already have with Singapore Airlines?

Yeah I think the meeting has happened or is about to happen. Regardless from what I heard it going to be a wide ranging conversation about possibilities, not just singapore. I also personally think with SIA increasing frequency to 10 weekly in October, perhaps Qantas should try another route.

[belivesinadsy]

Vietnam definately deserves direct service. Family just returned from their yearly trip via Singapore (we are not Vietnamese).
We plan to make regular trips their once our kids are older but would want their national carrier as I would just fly Singapore instead if a cheap carrier.
Regarding direct Japan flights. Happen to know a Qantas captain who told me this will be more likely to happen when Qanats receive their Airbus nanos that have a long range. Also a Queenstown direct route would be on the cards.

[rev]

Seasonally, I would think Tokyo and Hawaii travel would be a lot. I know personal experiences don't always translate in the figures we're provided (so feel free to rebut me on that front), but if I were to look within my own circle where people are travelling each year the four overseas destinations I always get (excluding Bali, because that's an obvious one) are Tokyo, London, Greek Islands and Hawaii. From a business/trading and visiting family POV, Christchurch and Dehli would make perfect sense and frankly, I'm surprised we're no longer connected to Christchurch (if the sister city thing actually possessed any real economic trading value). But I can see United Airlines going to Hawaii from Adelaide before they even consider LA. As for JAL, I think any decision not to include Adelaide in the mix is purely because they are focusing their expansion elsewhere in the world and they're already servicing the Australian market out of multiple cities. I feel the most disappointing reality in all of this is that our own national carrier, Qantas, doesn't service any international flights out of Adelaide; frankly that to me shows how little they care about serving their clientele. I'm also surprised that Emirates hasn't made any progress on returning to Adelaide since it left, especially considering the evidence we're provided suggests that Adelaide is doing as well, if not better, in terms of passenger numbers than it was pre-COVID.

From my personal and family/friends experience, I know quite a few people who travel to Japan, mainly Tokyo, for business, as well as the US which also includes defence personnel on deployments for various projects between the two countries.
For touristy stuff, it's mainly Europe and South East/East Asia.

Even flights out of Melbourne to the US, if you take Fiji airlines, you have a stop over in Fiji. So a flight out of Adelaide stopping in Hawaii, I think would be a great outcome for us. I haven't looked, but I'm sure there'd be many connecting options across the US west coast out of Honolulu.

I think as a state and city we would do well if the government and business council focused on growing business ties as higher priority over just tourism.

[Brucetiki]

9news reporting yesterday the premier will have a long awaited high-level meeting with Qantas’s CEO Vanessa Hudson soon. Pushing to have international flights back to quote “Asia”, also floating the idea of the United States apparently.

Hopefully, Qantas are considering it. It would work hand in hand with the brand new Qantas lounges they are building in the terminal.

fingers crossed

Well you'd think Qantas wouldn't be silly enough to take on SIA for the ADL-SIN route, as it would fail spectacularly. It would be another destination.

Japan is one that I think might be possible, maybe something other than Tokyo would be nice...... Kyoto or Osaka would make a nice point of difference but maybe not so commercially viable

I'm not sure that ADL-SIN would fail for QF.

It's a good opportunity for people to redeem Qantas points on an international flight without needing to fly interstate. This could also potentially feed into QF1 at SIN.

Plus having 2 international airliners offering ADL-SIN can only be good for airfares.

[GrowAdelaide]

9news reporting yesterday the premier will have a long awaited high-level meeting with Qantas’s CEO Vanessa Hudson soon. Pushing to have international flights back to quote “Asia”, also floating the idea of the United States apparently.

Hopefully, Qantas are considering it. It would work hand in hand with the brand new Qantas lounges they are building in the terminal.

fingers crossed

Well you'd think Qantas wouldn't be silly enough to take on SIA for the ADL-SIN route, as it would fail spectacularly. It would be another destination.

Japan is one that I think might be possible, maybe something other than Tokyo would be nice...... Kyoto or Osaka would make a nice point of difference but maybe not so commercially viable

Kyoto might be a bit difficult seeing as they don't have an airport...

[Jaymz]

Kyoto might be a bit difficult seeing as they don't have an airport...

Ohhh, thanks for the info I never realised that

12 months ago my partner and I travelled to Kyoto by bullet train from Tokyo, to be honest it was my favourite city when we visited in Japan.

Osaka is very close by, about 15 minutes by bullet train. So much so that we fitted it into a day trip.

I could see why they make do with an airport at Osaka to service those two cities.

[EBG]

I think it is disgraceful that the only place you can fly overseas by Quantas is Kingscoat in the republic of Kangaroo Island. yet you could fly to Singapore and the restof Asia and Europe by Quntas back in the 1980's,

[VinyTapestry849]

I'm not sure that ADL-SIN would fail for QF.

It's a good opportunity for people to redeem Qantas points on an international flight without needing to fly interstate. This could also potentially feed into QF1 at SIN.

Plus having 2 international airliners offering ADL-SIN can only be good for airfares.

You can burn all your Qantas points of Emirates btw, they’ve got a partnership.

I’m not sure Qantas could support Singapore any more. SIA is just dominating the market and increasing frequency soon. I find it hard for the Qantas board to approve that route resuming.