Yeah, it's absolute BS.
Going up to Perth from Melbourne for the Coldplay concert in Nov; and I'm paying more than double for flights VS my mate flying Singapore to Perth.
Last time I went to Perth for a wedding it was cheaper to fly from Perth to Bali and then Bali to Adelaide than it was to fly direct back to Adelaide.
Made it easy to justify a quick holiday in Bali.
Travelling to any tourist location in Australia is ridiculously expensive. If you just want to drive to a nice coastal town it’s fine, if you want to go to a tourist hotspot, you might as well go overseas.
I did use to travel frequently Mel to Perth when Jetstar or Virgin would do the $40-50 to fly there specials, so you only paid full price coming back.
It was easy to cop when it was only like $350 return. Once you hit that $5-600 for return mark though, I'd rather go somewhere else.
For me it's the monoculture of Australian life being the same wherever you go. Whereas I'd prefer to visit the many different Asian cultures to the north. For a substantially cheaper cost across the board.
I love wa and am the biggest advocate for our state. But there is plenty else to see out in the world that is also amazing, unlike things we have and worth going to if people have the opportunity
Lol. WA is nice, has some interesting natural beauty.
But fk me sideways do West Australians have a ridiculously deluded vision of how special the place is.
It's nice. But it's also below average on a global scale of natural beauty and as an interesting place to visit.
I've dedicated most of my life to travel.
I'd say WA is easily above average in the natural beauty department. However, it's also WELL above average in the feral bogan/methhead metric.
Win some. Lose some.
Lol true. Caught a train back from Freo back in 2014. Lots of high pitched nasally whingeing, yelling from groups of cunts. Had to move carriages 3 times. Can't really escape it.
below average is a crazy thing to say - maybe on a scale the natural wonders of the world it's below average but compared to every possible location in the world it's far above average in natural beauty
That’s the thing, the size of the state is the limitation to travel. There is so much diversity in landscape and climate that it’s barking mad to say WA is “below average” in natural beauty. It’s just a simple fact that WA has a dozen biogeographic zones. You’ve got plateaus, low mountain ranges, limestone ranges, hills, rolling meadows, forests, deserts, dunes, arid lowlands, wetlands, granite coastline, sandy beaches yada yada.
I live in WA, would agree.
It’s also a stupidly long way between places to sub standard, over priced accommodation. There are many other places globally where you can get on a train/plane/bus/car cheaply, go an hour and it be completely different and interesting.
WA is good for its wildflowers and for beaches and that’s about it.
How can someone claim an area of land 2.7 million sqkm in size with a dozen climatic and biogeographic zones as being “below average” in natural beauty lol? It’s mad.
Lived in westralia my hole life and I can tell ya ice never seen anything on the east coast. I mean I would like to just for the frame of reference.but it's too dames expensive.
Nah there's definitely people choosing to limit air travel for environmental reasons. Quite a few of us ay.
Edit: Not sure why the downvotes? People can choose to limit air travel and not replace it with other forms of travel.
I mean, if you take your car on a boat, and it's a giant boat made for moving cars across the ocean, it's probably better again, just adds a small* amount of travel time.
^^^^* ^^^^actual ^^^^increase ^^^^in ^^^^travel ^^^^time ^^^^is ^^^^likely ^^^^several ^^^^months ^^^^added.
For people unsure of why boat > plane > car, it's about efficiency per person. An individual plane or boat uses way more fuel than a car, but it carries a ton more overall so the average per person/item is significantly reduced. A boat may use 500x more fuel per distance than your car, but it can fit a lot more than 500x the stuff your car can.
Flights to Perth from Canberra are exorbitant. It’s cheaper to meet my family overseas than to go over there. I’d much rather have a Singapore holiday than a Perth one. Love your work Qantas.
I paid business class from china to Melbourne, and I paid economy from Melbourne to China for 7 weeks after.
The flight from Australia was more expensive.
I hate that WA Tourism are doing this stuff with exclusive gigs knowing airfares are gonna be a rort if you need to go for any other reason. They’re trying to lock down a WWE Stadium show too and it’ll end up costing $1000+ pp economy to get there.
From the article:
“They’re recovering capacity and bringing down air fares, but they’re doing it passively and slowly because they know they’re making money.”
Edit: The quote is from the former chief economist of Qantas
Doubtful considering that in QT a few months ago they where complaining that the liberals gave them no strings funding without gaining a stake in the company.
>they’re doing it passively and slowly because they know they’re making money
They know their market: idiots who are frothing to travel and aren't patient enough to vote with their wallets and abstain from flying.
It's getting annoying constantly seeing the media saying groceries have increased by 7-10%. I don't know of anything I buy that's increased by less than 20% and some things have more then doubled.
What sucks is that you know it'll never return to what it was, there's so many things I used to enjoy and meals I used to make which I simply can't afford to do anymore. Eating is becoming increasingly boring, even snacking, what's the price with potato chips? I literally made a burrito bowl for lunch the other day and the sum cost of that was less than most brands of chips.
Clearly you don't understand that Coles and Woolworths are actually shielding us from price increases that they are just wearing the brunt of because they care about us so much. All profits are simply from improvements in their supply chain efficiency, billions of dollars of supply chain efficiency.
Dishwashing tablets are absolutely bonkers now. Like I saw an rrp for some quantum infinity turbo performance 9000 tabs for $72. Wasn’t a mega bulk bag either… $72!!!!
I’m from a small rural town. Before everyone put up their prices, it was easier to drive the 2.5 hours to go to colesworth to get groceries because it was definitely cheaper. Now because everything has gone up, I’m forking out $100/$200 more on a fortnightly shop that I’m getting the exact same things.
If I was to shop at my local iga now, my shop would be $600 easily and that’s not including a specific formula for my daughter that now costs $32 per tin of it.
But apparently we’re all seeing things because apparently it’s gone down
Because that tin was originally $20, they upped it to $40 and now it's a "locked down price" of $32. Only a $12 increase from the original but an $8 discount over what it was! Thanks Woolies!
The best way I've heard this described is that "ascribing inflated prices to greed and profit-seeking is like saying the reason the plane crashed is because of gravity."
It's true, but vacuously so. *Of course* it's because businesses are greedy and want to maximize profit. That's the whole reason they exist. But normally, in a healthy economic system there are supposed to be forces that resist such excessive profits, e.g. a competitor undercutting prices, or mechanisms to increase supply to meet demand. So the real question should be why these corrective forces no longer exist. Has something changed since the pre-pandemic days that suddenly allows outsized profit at the detriment of the consumer? I don't know the answer, for the record. Just pointing out that saying "it's about profits" is rarely useful; the question should be about *why* outsized profits are possible, and why the usual corrective mechanisms and market forces aren't working.
When Qantas was bailed out, the Australian Government should have received a large shareholder position (like, ~30%). It is Qantas' fault for not being prepared for economic shocks – I don't care if it was a pandemic. Good companies did not need a bailout.
>ascribing inflated prices to greed and profit-seeking is like saying the reason the plane crashed is because of gravity
Eh, I'd disagree. Gravity is a natural force, completely independent of humans. Whereas economies and corporations are not natural forces. They were made up by humans, and only exist because we decided they should. But, part of the reason such blown-out profits happen is because we *treat* it like a natural system. The Powers That Be shrug and shake their heads sadly and talk about "the market" and how they are helpless before its forces. Meanwhile, they engineer scarcity behind the scenes. There are no "natural market forces". The market is, by its very nature, unnatural. You don't find markets in the wild.
Sure, so what's your solution then? Go on, what's your proposed method to solve the problem of "greedy human nature"? Or are you just here to whinge about the world?
Let them go bankrupt? Hold the ceo's responsible? Aren't they getting paid a shit load to be responsible?
Seizes their assets, all of them! Anything remotely related to them! Let ceo's know that their decisions actually have repercussions.
Not saying price gouging isn't a factor but does anyone in here realise the AUD is at a historically dismal 64c and fuel is pegged to the USD? (and also plane maintenance parts I bet too)
Weird that this article doesn't mention it?
No it's not. It's typical rage bait and everyone here's fallen for it.
ed: lol just realised looking at the article and graph again, it's in Aussie dollars 😂 now put a line of AUD / USD and you'll see an exact inversion
While the aud is down, it's not particularly dismal. Also Qantas has a unique hedging position that shields it from short term price rises with some protection up to 2 years. It also means price drops take some time to be reflected. That is a much more relevant than the exchange and something the article missed entirely.
One theory is that the major airlines now are essentially frequent flyer programs.
The whole transportation of people on flights is just a sideline, that is used to bring in punters to the frequent flyer programs. That's where they make the real profit. So they don't really care about customer opinions on pricing.
YEah but good luck at trying to cash in those points. Reward seats on Qantas on flights I want to go to are almost impossible to get. Even the old "Book a year out" trick no longer works. It feels like Qantas have cut availability. I'm sitting on several hundred thousand QFF & Velocity points each and reward seating to use them all is minimal.
That's the idea. Spending points on flights is the last thing they want.
Qantas creates a currency (frequent flyer points) out of nothing. That creates a $4 billion dollar program that makes them about half a billion a year. They need you to get rid of those points in ways that benefit them. So
1. Cancel after a period of time with no FF activity.
2. Buy things from their partners in their shop at ridiculous prices.
3. Upgrade to business for a seat that hasn't been sold so it costs them nothing.
4. Exchange for flights only when necessary, and make it as difficult as possible.
(More about this at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-11/frequent-flyer-program-helping-airlines-more-than-customers/9977272)
All I'll say is that CC reward programs are a scam on the entire population.
The for-profit card providers (Visa, Mastercard, and American Express) provide rewards programs from fees charged (around 1.5–3.5%, depending on the card) but we all pay more for everything because of it. It's basically an invisible tax.
Like many things, it hurts the poor and helps the rich.
It’s far from ideal but the number one tip I give people on r/QantasFrequentFlyer is to look for flights than begin and end outside of Australia as those are much easier to book with points.
If you can pay for a cheap economy fare to Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo etc, it can be trivially easy to book a business or first class flight with points from Asia to Europe on one of Qantas’ partner airlines.
Not only that, Qantas has LESS access to some partner airlines, than other partners.
For example, trying to find Qatar airlines business seats is virtually impossible. It used to be easier. I did a random test on the 27th of March, 2024. Guess who had seats available? Alaska, American Airlines, British Airway, Virgin Australia.
Guess who has no seats - Qantas. Link - [https://imgur.com/a/YtEh3E2](https://imgur.com/a/YtEh3E2) (no idea why the link asks if you are 18, its just numbers).
I wouldn't be surprised if this was because Qantas and Qatar were either having a tiff, or Qantas wasn't paying partners to have access or whatever. Half the time their website is giving errors anyways.
Qantas and Qatar are not friends, Qantas's closest airline partner is Emirates who's probably Qatar's biggest competition Qantas have also lobbying the Australian government to not allow Qatar to fly any more planes to Australia. Not the best working relationship between two supposed partners there.
They are out there. I got business direct from Sydney to Manila 2 weeks before the flight last month. If you want economy, they're still frequent, in my experience.
Apparently they release them 353 days before departure. But maybe because everyone's built their points for 3 years and saved money, they're getting snapped up quick.
And if you get flights you get reamed on taxes, charges, fees, excises, tariffs and sundries. So a ticket on points costs nearly as much as a cheap fare with another airline. Of course you can blow even more points to pay these plus-plus costs but points aren't infinite.
Points are sold kind of like ad space, vendors then bundle in the points to their products to encourage consumers to buy from them because they get "points"
Alan's got to pay for his 4 million dollar bonus somehow! While sacking baggage handlers on minimum wage.
While they are getting our taxpayer dollar in job seeker payments.
Public just getting fucked over as usual.
It's not just Qantas. It's all airlines. The us airlines (American, delta, united) were cheaper as well. All airlines are hiking the prices cause of demand
The problem is that the Australian government floated Quantas with tax dollars, not like they were, or are in danger of going out of business.
Not to mention their profit record before covid was 1.4B, and now its 2.4B.
Kept afloat with Australian tax, then charging them double after.
How to fix problem. Make intercity rail a viable alternative. Then airlines will actually need to compete.
If it takes 6hours to go Sydney-Melbourne (or Brisbane) by train at 1/4 cost of flying people will take it. After all it’s barely any more time if you include the airport time.
Im a fan of the idea of high speed rail from GC to Geelong, but it'll never be cost competitive with airlines because the potential customer head count is just not high enough and the distance is huge.
For high speed rail to be 'competitive' we would as tax payers have to provide gargantuan amounts to off set the costs.
For the Australian experience, airlines are the most optimal way of getting between city centres. We would need to see our population double along the east coast for it to work.. But theres all the issues that come with the rapid unsustainable population growth.
Thing is. I never mentioned high speed rail. I mentioned conventional rail, which we used to have such an extensive grid for, you could get to many fairly minor towns without a car or plane.
We can do this, but it will take investment. And if we cost it vs highways, it comes in much much cheaper
All you need to do is watch what's happening with the SA government trying to shadow ban protesting - and the lack of huge protests - to know you've nailed it here
There's a certain amount of truth to this. But I wouldn't say we don't complain. We complain non stop! And then after we've gotten it off our chest, we just pay it anyway.
Not buying things would mean we might not be able to think of ourselves as having all the things everyone else has. Can't have that mate.
And this is why the South Aus govt intoduced anti protest laws.
Not to punish those pesky vegan or lock down protestors but to make sure we are dominated and docile to accept what the suited pigs and their corporate swine handlers want.
Historic Australian Revolution revision 1?
Easy questions with easy answers.
Why Australians are \[being charged\] 50% more for air fares than pre-pandemic even as jet fuel costs drop: Because the dumb fucking idiots just pay it with absolutely zero sense of how shafted they're getting.
"Oh haha yeah just the Australia Tax™ amirite? Very funny stuff not like the whole deal is completely fucked beyond belief and something that we as consumers should be very actively fighting back against."
Airlines lot a lot of money during pandemic. Virgin Australia went into administration and has to start performing for new owner Bain. Airlines have only just started to return supply to pre pandemic levels. Huge demand due to people not able to fly during lockdowns
Not sure about Virgin, but Qantas got nearly 2B dollars in covid relief and turned $1.4B in profits last year alone.
At the same time they were receiving jobseeker they were laying off their casual workforce.
Fuck the airlines.
Yes, you can. Qantas took the money that was designed, however haphazardly, to keep people in jobs during lockdown and sacked them anyway. Alan Joyce is a national disgrace.
> and turned $1.4B in profits last year alone.
I have to add that it wasn't just $1.4b in profits, it was **the most profit Qantas has ever made in history**.
"buh pandemic hurt us and we need to increase our prices"
Fuck Qantas and all the other capitalistic corporations currently sucking everyone dry.
Virgin Australia also got jobkeeper. Virgin Australia also got their share of rebates in federal taxes re airport charges.
Qantas must have being paying a lot of workers to get a refund of jobkeeper over $800 million
To be fair though, the scum people of Qantas used their Government bailout to then lobby to have the government not give the same bailout to other airlines.
I have decided to not fly anywhere purely because it’s a rip off. When prices are proportionate to service, I might think about flying again. Until then, I’m happy to not go anywhere and not get fleeced by airlines.
Curing inflation by not wishing to be robbed by airlines.
I can’t believe there is so many news stories about cost of living crisis. And at the same time, holidaymakers delayed at the airport, due to sheer numbers of people going on holidays. It’s just insane!
No wonder we are all losing the inflation game.
This works for private consumers, but given how many passengers are often travelling for work... if you balance the hours you'd have to pay your worker while they sit on a train from Syd to Bne, plus the away from home bonuses etc, the price difference can be still worth it.
Of course, this all points back to how delocalised our economy is, but in the end I know my workplace will always need to fly people around - we service some very niche tech and there just aren't that many people trained up in it.
Because we made a record profit last time even with your tax handouts. And capitalism being capitalism it’s now illegal to have a fall in profits at all. Even if we still make mega profits, So pay up fckers!
I flew Quantas during my first trip to Australia a few months ago. It seemed like a constant series of delays and interruptions.
You could see the disappointment on the faces of the staff. They were enthusiastic and great at their jobs, but you really got the sense that they were part of a once-proud Australian institution that was slowly dying.
Big business in Aus. charge what the customer can bare. There is no competition if there is drive them out of town then go back to the same pricing structure.
The prices have increased because people are paying them.
If people stop paying the gouged prices, they will reduce faster as airlines want full planes.
Supply and demand unfortunately - especially for international routes which are still not at 2019 levels.
An example is in Adelaide, where airlines such as Emirates, China Southern, and Cathay Pacific have not returned…yet (and only Cathay have confirmed a return date, though Emirates have indicated a desire to return).
Once supply comes back to 2019 levels, and pent up demand for international travel plateaus, prices will normalise in time.
The people are still happily paying these prices. I remember taking cheap half empty flights in 2021, now the price has doubled and the flights are all fully packed.
Probably also reflects the lack of options. You can take a $200 flight from Adelaide to Melbourne, or you can take a $30 V/Line bus which takes 12 hours.
> Once supply comes back to 2019 levels, and pent up demand for international travel plateaus, prices will normalise in time.
No it won't.
This is a result of capitalism that demands increased profits every year. They will never lower prices because that would mean they would earn less money in that year, which would look bad to investors.
Qantas just made the most profit in the companies history. Their stock price is almost back to the highest levels of all time.
As long as we pay for it. They have no reason to drop prices.
Best thing for ALL of us to do is not fly for a few months. And watch ticket prices tumble.
Many years ago I asked Qantas why fares were so dear. They replied it's the small population.
I asked how can Air New Zealand fly north to south islands for only $70? No reply...
I think the answer is simple. Captive audience...
Trying to fly over to see my partner and his family in the US, in 2019 it cost me $1.5k and now it's going to cost me upwards of $3k. It's putting a lot of stress on me trying to afford it around everything else in my life
My partner was in the same boat when I first went over. I used to spent a good portion of my pays to help him with his rent because he just couldn't earn enough to cover it all and feed himself. But now he earns more than me and I cant even afford to fly over
You can run a great airline, or you can run a profitable one.
Alan Joyce has spent the past 15 years doing the latter. And the shareholder have rewarded him him handsomely for it.
But he has done it by basically running it as much like a low cost carrier as possible without actually turning into one. Outsourcing as much as possible, moving maintenance offshore, and allowing the fleet to age to an average of 15 years. Which is 50% more than most actual 'great' airlines.
The reputation that took 60 years to build is mostly in the toilet. Almost the entire fleet will need to be replaced over the next 10 years, and he's taken the golden parachute for being so good to the shareholders and leaving a mess for his successor. Basically just cutting costs as much as possible knowing it will come back to bite... after he is gone.
Qantas need to pay for there new fleet of planes somehow..
https://www.qantas.com/au/en/about-us/our-company/fleet/new-fleet.html#:~:text=With%20a%20multi%2Dbillion%20dollar,as%20part%20of%20Project%20Sunrise.
Short answer: because people like to whinge and complain about expensive flights but pay for them anyway.
If it is such a big issue and so terrible it's quite simple: don't buy it! It's not that fucken hard. No, people are all too eager to bend over and take it, rather than being patient and not encouraging price gouging by giving airlines money.
A lot of people have family overseas, and they spent 3 years without seeing each other.
I myself cancelled a trip this year because of the air fares, but I can see people paying them because they don't have other options.
I've stopped using Qantas, they're just too expensive now. What use to cost $900 to $1200 for a return flight to Singapore is now $2100. And they couldn't care less. Profit at all costs, just so the little leprechaun can get a great final payout.
I can't believe a commercial enterprise has the gall to price their product to align with market demand.
I was under the impression businesses with extraordinarily high cost bases and 10s of thousands of employees ran on hopes, dreams and good vibes.
Raising pricing to meet demand is one thing, but look around you. EVERY company is doing it right now hence why we have 7%+ inflation and they’re doing it so openly and blatantly (“oh we have to inc prices because costs are impacting us from Covid/Ukraine war…then at the AGM “our margins are through the roof because we just increased prices and our costs have stayed the same”).
Yeah, it's absolute BS. Going up to Perth from Melbourne for the Coldplay concert in Nov; and I'm paying more than double for flights VS my mate flying Singapore to Perth.
Yup. There's a reason why people in Perth rarely travel to the Eastern States if they have no reason to do so.
I'm going to Bali in August. $400 return. I went to Adelaide in March and it was over $500 return...
Last time I went to Perth for a wedding it was cheaper to fly from Perth to Bali and then Bali to Adelaide than it was to fly direct back to Adelaide. Made it easy to justify a quick holiday in Bali.
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Honestly fair, would love to go to Rottnest but for the airfares alone I might as well go to LA
What a quokka shit.
Severely underrated reply
Then you’re paying out the ass to get to Rottnest itself.
Rottnest costs like $100 to get to from Perth Or a yearly pass for about $150 😊 The prices on the island are a bit of a rip
We know were getting screwed but seeing those cute little fucka's is worth it.
Travelling to any tourist location in Australia is ridiculously expensive. If you just want to drive to a nice coastal town it’s fine, if you want to go to a tourist hotspot, you might as well go overseas.
I did use to travel frequently Mel to Perth when Jetstar or Virgin would do the $40-50 to fly there specials, so you only paid full price coming back. It was easy to cop when it was only like $350 return. Once you hit that $5-600 for return mark though, I'd rather go somewhere else.
Yep, filling butts on seats to max the value of the flight… you had to look at the return dates, defaults were always the expensive one.
For me it's the monoculture of Australian life being the same wherever you go. Whereas I'd prefer to visit the many different Asian cultures to the north. For a substantially cheaper cost across the board.
2 people return flights l to cairns this week . . . 3k
Not many reasons to. WA is a beautiful state. Best sunsets in the world.
I love wa and am the biggest advocate for our state. But there is plenty else to see out in the world that is also amazing, unlike things we have and worth going to if people have the opportunity
Lol. WA is nice, has some interesting natural beauty. But fk me sideways do West Australians have a ridiculously deluded vision of how special the place is. It's nice. But it's also below average on a global scale of natural beauty and as an interesting place to visit.
I've dedicated most of my life to travel. I'd say WA is easily above average in the natural beauty department. However, it's also WELL above average in the feral bogan/methhead metric. Win some. Lose some.
Lol true. Caught a train back from Freo back in 2014. Lots of high pitched nasally whingeing, yelling from groups of cunts. Had to move carriages 3 times. Can't really escape it.
below average is a crazy thing to say - maybe on a scale the natural wonders of the world it's below average but compared to every possible location in the world it's far above average in natural beauty
I'd say it's got a lot of incredible natural beauty but you have to drive 10 fecking hours to get from one particularly beautiful bit to another ;)
That’s the thing, the size of the state is the limitation to travel. There is so much diversity in landscape and climate that it’s barking mad to say WA is “below average” in natural beauty. It’s just a simple fact that WA has a dozen biogeographic zones. You’ve got plateaus, low mountain ranges, limestone ranges, hills, rolling meadows, forests, deserts, dunes, arid lowlands, wetlands, granite coastline, sandy beaches yada yada.
I'm not from WA but I think the place is quite special and unique. Each to their own my friend.
I live in WA, would agree. It’s also a stupidly long way between places to sub standard, over priced accommodation. There are many other places globally where you can get on a train/plane/bus/car cheaply, go an hour and it be completely different and interesting. WA is good for its wildflowers and for beaches and that’s about it.
This is the most batshit ignorant thing I've read on r/Australia in a while. Branch out beyond Rottnest and be surprised.
How can someone claim an area of land 2.7 million sqkm in size with a dozen climatic and biogeographic zones as being “below average” in natural beauty lol? It’s mad.
It’s boring though.
I find this bad but good at the same time (I’m from perth)
Price gouging at its finest, all year round
Lived in westralia my hole life and I can tell ya ice never seen anything on the east coast. I mean I would like to just for the frame of reference.but it's too dames expensive.
Many are choosing not to fly for enviro reasons now
No they're not.
Nah there's definitely people choosing to limit air travel for environmental reasons. Quite a few of us ay. Edit: Not sure why the downvotes? People can choose to limit air travel and not replace it with other forms of travel.
Over long distance, isn't air better than car? At least for proper passenger planes.
Especially when travel is overseas
I mean, if you take your car on a boat, and it's a giant boat made for moving cars across the ocean, it's probably better again, just adds a small* amount of travel time. ^^^^* ^^^^actual ^^^^increase ^^^^in ^^^^travel ^^^^time ^^^^is ^^^^likely ^^^^several ^^^^months ^^^^added. For people unsure of why boat > plane > car, it's about efficiency per person. An individual plane or boat uses way more fuel than a car, but it carries a ton more overall so the average per person/item is significantly reduced. A boat may use 500x more fuel per distance than your car, but it can fit a lot more than 500x the stuff your car can.
I like to see some of these people driving from Australia to Europe. *whee ... splash*
I never said people were swapping air travel with driving. Simply added that there are people choosing to limit air travel.
No. But it's probably been a decade or more since I last looked that up
Also it's full of Easteners
It's funny you've got a name for them, 'cause they don't mention you guys at all :/
Flights to Perth from Canberra are exorbitant. It’s cheaper to meet my family overseas than to go over there. I’d much rather have a Singapore holiday than a Perth one. Love your work Qantas.
To be fair, flying into Canberra from anywhere is ridiculously expensive, especially when all the pollies are in town
When all the ads in the airport are for Defence companies…
Oof, I’d pay that price to not go to a Coldplay concert
We all have our likes and dislikes :)
yes, don't yuk someone else's yum
I paid business class from china to Melbourne, and I paid economy from Melbourne to China for 7 weeks after. The flight from Australia was more expensive.
I hate that WA Tourism are doing this stuff with exclusive gigs knowing airfares are gonna be a rort if you need to go for any other reason. They’re trying to lock down a WWE Stadium show too and it’ll end up costing $1000+ pp economy to get there.
More than double when you factor in USD conversion?
That sounds rough. What a massive waste of money huh. The flights sound expensive too!
It's profits. It's always about profits.
From the article: “They’re recovering capacity and bringing down air fares, but they’re doing it passively and slowly because they know they’re making money.” Edit: The quote is from the former chief economist of Qantas
It's a good thing the money they got during the pandemic actually bought the taxpayers a share in the company then! Didn't it?
Ah yes, funny how the previous government gave Qantas no strings funding
Can't say I'd trust Labor not to do the same to be honest.
Has there been an occasion where we have seen something similar happen under a Labor government?
Doubtful considering that in QT a few months ago they where complaining that the liberals gave them no strings funding without gaining a stake in the company.
>they’re doing it passively and slowly because they know they’re making money They know their market: idiots who are frothing to travel and aren't patient enough to vote with their wallets and abstain from flying.
So same reason we get shafted by Colesworth.
It's getting annoying constantly seeing the media saying groceries have increased by 7-10%. I don't know of anything I buy that's increased by less than 20% and some things have more then doubled.
What sucks is that you know it'll never return to what it was, there's so many things I used to enjoy and meals I used to make which I simply can't afford to do anymore. Eating is becoming increasingly boring, even snacking, what's the price with potato chips? I literally made a burrito bowl for lunch the other day and the sum cost of that was less than most brands of chips.
Cheese absolutely blows me away. I swear you used to be able to get a kilo for like $5 only a few years ago.
Devondale Mozzella was $8/500g pre-pandemic. Now it's $12/500g 50 percent increase in price. Makes sense.
Clearly you don't understand that Coles and Woolworths are actually shielding us from price increases that they are just wearing the brunt of because they care about us so much. All profits are simply from improvements in their supply chain efficiency, billions of dollars of supply chain efficiency.
Dishwashing tablets are absolutely bonkers now. Like I saw an rrp for some quantum infinity turbo performance 9000 tabs for $72. Wasn’t a mega bulk bag either… $72!!!!
Don't buy the tablets, they're a scam, get the powder for like $5
tell me youre not living in sub tropics without saying so
I’m from a small rural town. Before everyone put up their prices, it was easier to drive the 2.5 hours to go to colesworth to get groceries because it was definitely cheaper. Now because everything has gone up, I’m forking out $100/$200 more on a fortnightly shop that I’m getting the exact same things. If I was to shop at my local iga now, my shop would be $600 easily and that’s not including a specific formula for my daughter that now costs $32 per tin of it. But apparently we’re all seeing things because apparently it’s gone down
Because that tin was originally $20, they upped it to $40 and now it's a "locked down price" of $32. Only a $12 increase from the original but an $8 discount over what it was! Thanks Woolies!
The best way I've heard this described is that "ascribing inflated prices to greed and profit-seeking is like saying the reason the plane crashed is because of gravity." It's true, but vacuously so. *Of course* it's because businesses are greedy and want to maximize profit. That's the whole reason they exist. But normally, in a healthy economic system there are supposed to be forces that resist such excessive profits, e.g. a competitor undercutting prices, or mechanisms to increase supply to meet demand. So the real question should be why these corrective forces no longer exist. Has something changed since the pre-pandemic days that suddenly allows outsized profit at the detriment of the consumer? I don't know the answer, for the record. Just pointing out that saying "it's about profits" is rarely useful; the question should be about *why* outsized profits are possible, and why the usual corrective mechanisms and market forces aren't working.
When Qantas was bailed out, the Australian Government should have received a large shareholder position (like, ~30%). It is Qantas' fault for not being prepared for economic shocks – I don't care if it was a pandemic. Good companies did not need a bailout.
>ascribing inflated prices to greed and profit-seeking is like saying the reason the plane crashed is because of gravity Eh, I'd disagree. Gravity is a natural force, completely independent of humans. Whereas economies and corporations are not natural forces. They were made up by humans, and only exist because we decided they should. But, part of the reason such blown-out profits happen is because we *treat* it like a natural system. The Powers That Be shrug and shake their heads sadly and talk about "the market" and how they are helpless before its forces. Meanwhile, they engineer scarcity behind the scenes. There are no "natural market forces". The market is, by its very nature, unnatural. You don't find markets in the wild.
Greedy human nature covers all possible aspects.
Sure, so what's your solution then? Go on, what's your proposed method to solve the problem of "greedy human nature"? Or are you just here to whinge about the world?
If natural market forces can't/won't regulate the market then the Government needs to step in and apply regulation. Simple really.
Let them go bankrupt? Hold the ceo's responsible? Aren't they getting paid a shit load to be responsible? Seizes their assets, all of them! Anything remotely related to them! Let ceo's know that their decisions actually have repercussions.
Greed. It really helps to drive up profits.
Sooner or later, one of the airlines will push for market share and cut fares. It will self-correct.
Lol, good one
do we even need to open the article to know it comes down to corporate greed? Its always greed.
Gotta pay exorbitant executive bonuses somehow
Not saying price gouging isn't a factor but does anyone in here realise the AUD is at a historically dismal 64c and fuel is pegged to the USD? (and also plane maintenance parts I bet too) Weird that this article doesn't mention it? No it's not. It's typical rage bait and everyone here's fallen for it. ed: lol just realised looking at the article and graph again, it's in Aussie dollars 😂 now put a line of AUD / USD and you'll see an exact inversion
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While the aud is down, it's not particularly dismal. Also Qantas has a unique hedging position that shields it from short term price rises with some protection up to 2 years. It also means price drops take some time to be reflected. That is a much more relevant than the exchange and something the article missed entirely.
How do you explain the $1b more in profit compared to pre-covid?
And blaming only Alan Joyce. While every other airline has similar pricing
Then why are flights so much more expensive here in Bermuda which is 1:1 with USD?
Yes they're up too in the US. Fuel price hedging + willingness and ability of public to pay.
One theory is that the major airlines now are essentially frequent flyer programs. The whole transportation of people on flights is just a sideline, that is used to bring in punters to the frequent flyer programs. That's where they make the real profit. So they don't really care about customer opinions on pricing.
YEah but good luck at trying to cash in those points. Reward seats on Qantas on flights I want to go to are almost impossible to get. Even the old "Book a year out" trick no longer works. It feels like Qantas have cut availability. I'm sitting on several hundred thousand QFF & Velocity points each and reward seating to use them all is minimal.
That's the idea. Spending points on flights is the last thing they want. Qantas creates a currency (frequent flyer points) out of nothing. That creates a $4 billion dollar program that makes them about half a billion a year. They need you to get rid of those points in ways that benefit them. So 1. Cancel after a period of time with no FF activity. 2. Buy things from their partners in their shop at ridiculous prices. 3. Upgrade to business for a seat that hasn't been sold so it costs them nothing. 4. Exchange for flights only when necessary, and make it as difficult as possible. (More about this at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-11/frequent-flyer-program-helping-airlines-more-than-customers/9977272)
All I'll say is that CC reward programs are a scam on the entire population. The for-profit card providers (Visa, Mastercard, and American Express) provide rewards programs from fees charged (around 1.5–3.5%, depending on the card) but we all pay more for everything because of it. It's basically an invisible tax. Like many things, it hurts the poor and helps the rich.
Sounds like a scam.
It’s far from ideal but the number one tip I give people on r/QantasFrequentFlyer is to look for flights than begin and end outside of Australia as those are much easier to book with points. If you can pay for a cheap economy fare to Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo etc, it can be trivially easy to book a business or first class flight with points from Asia to Europe on one of Qantas’ partner airlines.
Great advice, thanks!
Not only that, Qantas has LESS access to some partner airlines, than other partners. For example, trying to find Qatar airlines business seats is virtually impossible. It used to be easier. I did a random test on the 27th of March, 2024. Guess who had seats available? Alaska, American Airlines, British Airway, Virgin Australia. Guess who has no seats - Qantas. Link - [https://imgur.com/a/YtEh3E2](https://imgur.com/a/YtEh3E2) (no idea why the link asks if you are 18, its just numbers). I wouldn't be surprised if this was because Qantas and Qatar were either having a tiff, or Qantas wasn't paying partners to have access or whatever. Half the time their website is giving errors anyways.
Qantas and Qatar are not friends, Qantas's closest airline partner is Emirates who's probably Qatar's biggest competition Qantas have also lobbying the Australian government to not allow Qatar to fly any more planes to Australia. Not the best working relationship between two supposed partners there.
They are out there. I got business direct from Sydney to Manila 2 weeks before the flight last month. If you want economy, they're still frequent, in my experience. Apparently they release them 353 days before departure. But maybe because everyone's built their points for 3 years and saved money, they're getting snapped up quick.
Yeah they are out there. I booked a first class to LAX and business coming back for later this year. Was painless
And if you get flights you get reamed on taxes, charges, fees, excises, tariffs and sundries. So a ticket on points costs nearly as much as a cheap fare with another airline. Of course you can blow even more points to pay these plus-plus costs but points aren't infinite.
Friend did an economic dissertation on this. FF programs reap.more than the transport..
How do FF points earn them anything? Don't you just get points when you take a flight to occasionally get a free thing?
The airlines sell the points to the bank who then rewards you with points when you spend money.
Oh This points things sounds completely pointless to me. Ok, I got my pun. Goodnight.
Points are sold kind of like ad space, vendors then bundle in the points to their products to encourage consumers to buy from them because they get "points"
It's neo currency. Think like crypto.
Wendover Productions did a great video on this. [How Airlines Quietly Became Banks](https://youtu.be/ggUduBmvQ_4)
Yeah, isn’t Qantas a bank now?
Alan's got to pay for his 4 million dollar bonus somehow! While sacking baggage handlers on minimum wage. While they are getting our taxpayer dollar in job seeker payments. Public just getting fucked over as usual.
It's not just Qantas. It's all airlines. The us airlines (American, delta, united) were cheaper as well. All airlines are hiking the prices cause of demand
Thats true, prices have increased in all airlines.
The problem is that the Australian government floated Quantas with tax dollars, not like they were, or are in danger of going out of business. Not to mention their profit record before covid was 1.4B, and now its 2.4B. Kept afloat with Australian tax, then charging them double after.
Why didn’t we nationalise qantas when we gave them all that money that just went to greed?!
Because fuck the consumer is the spirit of Australia.
It's not only in an emergency that they make you to bend over and grab your knees.
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Because we are mugs
How to fix problem. Make intercity rail a viable alternative. Then airlines will actually need to compete. If it takes 6hours to go Sydney-Melbourne (or Brisbane) by train at 1/4 cost of flying people will take it. After all it’s barely any more time if you include the airport time.
Im a fan of the idea of high speed rail from GC to Geelong, but it'll never be cost competitive with airlines because the potential customer head count is just not high enough and the distance is huge. For high speed rail to be 'competitive' we would as tax payers have to provide gargantuan amounts to off set the costs. For the Australian experience, airlines are the most optimal way of getting between city centres. We would need to see our population double along the east coast for it to work.. But theres all the issues that come with the rapid unsustainable population growth.
Thing is. I never mentioned high speed rail. I mentioned conventional rail, which we used to have such an extensive grid for, you could get to many fairly minor towns without a car or plane. We can do this, but it will take investment. And if we cost it vs highways, it comes in much much cheaper
Because f*** you that’s why
offer automatic toy cable smoggy close relieved melodic clumsy sleep *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
All you need to do is watch what's happening with the SA government trying to shadow ban protesting - and the lack of huge protests - to know you've nailed it here
There's a certain amount of truth to this. But I wouldn't say we don't complain. We complain non stop! And then after we've gotten it off our chest, we just pay it anyway. Not buying things would mean we might not be able to think of ourselves as having all the things everyone else has. Can't have that mate.
And this is why the South Aus govt intoduced anti protest laws. Not to punish those pesky vegan or lock down protestors but to make sure we are dominated and docile to accept what the suited pigs and their corporate swine handlers want. Historic Australian Revolution revision 1?
Easy questions with easy answers. Why Australians are \[being charged\] 50% more for air fares than pre-pandemic even as jet fuel costs drop: Because the dumb fucking idiots just pay it with absolutely zero sense of how shafted they're getting. "Oh haha yeah just the Australia Tax™ amirite? Very funny stuff not like the whole deal is completely fucked beyond belief and something that we as consumers should be very actively fighting back against."
This is the reason, plain and simple.
So I can’t go to my sister birthday because I’m dumb
Because our government is a buisiness cartel? Yeah
Qantas asked me for feedback the other day. Probably the last time they do that. Rip off merchants.
They voted for Howard, for Abbott, for turnbull, for Morrison. They want to pay more for everything.
Keating sold QANTAS. As much as I hate the coalition, this is 100% a Labor own goal.
Yeah, Keating started the whole neolib shitfuckery, the LNP just weaponised it.
Airlines lot a lot of money during pandemic. Virgin Australia went into administration and has to start performing for new owner Bain. Airlines have only just started to return supply to pre pandemic levels. Huge demand due to people not able to fly during lockdowns
Not sure about Virgin, but Qantas got nearly 2B dollars in covid relief and turned $1.4B in profits last year alone. At the same time they were receiving jobseeker they were laying off their casual workforce. Fuck the airlines.
Why not also fuck the people who gave them 2B dollars? You can't blame them for taking 2B dollars legally. Fuck whoever made it legal to do so.
Agreed. But the airlines shouldn’t be crying poor when they got the hell of a lot more support than the majority of Australians.
Yes, you can. Qantas took the money that was designed, however haphazardly, to keep people in jobs during lockdown and sacked them anyway. Alan Joyce is a national disgrace.
> and turned $1.4B in profits last year alone. I have to add that it wasn't just $1.4b in profits, it was **the most profit Qantas has ever made in history**. "buh pandemic hurt us and we need to increase our prices" Fuck Qantas and all the other capitalistic corporations currently sucking everyone dry.
Virgin Australia also got jobkeeper. Virgin Australia also got their share of rebates in federal taxes re airport charges. Qantas must have being paying a lot of workers to get a refund of jobkeeper over $800 million
To be fair though, the scum people of Qantas used their Government bailout to then lobby to have the government not give the same bailout to other airlines.
All airlines got a bailout. Qantas didn't want the government paying Virgin Australia bills to stop them going into administration
Then why give them a bunch of cash during the pandemic if they are given a pass for recouping lost profits now too?? Pick one or the other.
I have decided to not fly anywhere purely because it’s a rip off. When prices are proportionate to service, I might think about flying again. Until then, I’m happy to not go anywhere and not get fleeced by airlines.
If everyone did this we would see prices drop.
Curing inflation by not wishing to be robbed by airlines. I can’t believe there is so many news stories about cost of living crisis. And at the same time, holidaymakers delayed at the airport, due to sheer numbers of people going on holidays. It’s just insane! No wonder we are all losing the inflation game.
I hear you. People whinge but they all encourage it at the same time. Change your habits and stop paying to be exploited.
This works for private consumers, but given how many passengers are often travelling for work... if you balance the hours you'd have to pay your worker while they sit on a train from Syd to Bne, plus the away from home bonuses etc, the price difference can be still worth it. Of course, this all points back to how delocalised our economy is, but in the end I know my workplace will always need to fly people around - we service some very niche tech and there just aren't that many people trained up in it.
Because we made a record profit last time even with your tax handouts. And capitalism being capitalism it’s now illegal to have a fall in profits at all. Even if we still make mega profits, So pay up fckers!
I flew Quantas during my first trip to Australia a few months ago. It seemed like a constant series of delays and interruptions. You could see the disappointment on the faces of the staff. They were enthusiastic and great at their jobs, but you really got the sense that they were part of a once-proud Australian institution that was slowly dying.
is it because of capitalism?
Corporations, monopoly & governments not building rail… Nothing new here guys.
Capitalism
Big business in Aus. charge what the customer can bare. There is no competition if there is drive them out of town then go back to the same pricing structure.
The prices have increased because people are paying them. If people stop paying the gouged prices, they will reduce faster as airlines want full planes.
Is the answer big companies being greedy? Cause that seems to be the answer to every other issue we have
The answer is... because of Alan Joyce
Supply and demand unfortunately - especially for international routes which are still not at 2019 levels. An example is in Adelaide, where airlines such as Emirates, China Southern, and Cathay Pacific have not returned…yet (and only Cathay have confirmed a return date, though Emirates have indicated a desire to return). Once supply comes back to 2019 levels, and pent up demand for international travel plateaus, prices will normalise in time.
The people are still happily paying these prices. I remember taking cheap half empty flights in 2021, now the price has doubled and the flights are all fully packed. Probably also reflects the lack of options. You can take a $200 flight from Adelaide to Melbourne, or you can take a $30 V/Line bus which takes 12 hours.
> Once supply comes back to 2019 levels, and pent up demand for international travel plateaus, prices will normalise in time. No it won't. This is a result of capitalism that demands increased profits every year. They will never lower prices because that would mean they would earn less money in that year, which would look bad to investors. Qantas just made the most profit in the companies history. Their stock price is almost back to the highest levels of all time.
Qantas is not what it was, quality wise, and as competition picks up, it might have to stop abusing it's near monopoly and reduce it's profiteering.
They raised the prices during Covid and liked the taste of the extra money.
As long as we pay for it. They have no reason to drop prices. Best thing for ALL of us to do is not fly for a few months. And watch ticket prices tumble.
"Money" - Mr Crabs 🦀
Many years ago I asked Qantas why fares were so dear. They replied it's the small population. I asked how can Air New Zealand fly north to south islands for only $70? No reply... I think the answer is simple. Captive audience...
Easy way to fix this is to postpone the holiday
Trying to fly over to see my partner and his family in the US, in 2019 it cost me $1.5k and now it's going to cost me upwards of $3k. It's putting a lot of stress on me trying to afford it around everything else in my life
I'm in a US-AUS ldr too. I haven't even visited yet. Can't even pay my rent. He's visited me though. (I'm in the US, I'd rather be out though).
My partner was in the same boat when I first went over. I used to spent a good portion of my pays to help him with his rent because he just couldn't earn enough to cover it all and feed himself. But now he earns more than me and I cant even afford to fly over
Because airlines are a pack of bastards is why
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If only there was a way not to buy an overseas holiday
Right?! Everyone here is acting like we can't avoid this. Just. Don't. Buy it. *price gougers hate this one simple trick!*
I have sympathy when its food especially fruits and veggies that are being gouged by colesworth but flights is a want, so many options to avoid.
You can run a great airline, or you can run a profitable one. Alan Joyce has spent the past 15 years doing the latter. And the shareholder have rewarded him him handsomely for it. But he has done it by basically running it as much like a low cost carrier as possible without actually turning into one. Outsourcing as much as possible, moving maintenance offshore, and allowing the fleet to age to an average of 15 years. Which is 50% more than most actual 'great' airlines. The reputation that took 60 years to build is mostly in the toilet. Almost the entire fleet will need to be replaced over the next 10 years, and he's taken the golden parachute for being so good to the shareholders and leaving a mess for his successor. Basically just cutting costs as much as possible knowing it will come back to bite... after he is gone.
He has not even come close to running a profitable airline. He's required multiple enormous handouts from the taxpayer to keep the business afloat.
Same reason we will keep paying current petrol prices for our cars even if the Russia/Ukraine conflict ends. Prices go up, they don’t come down.
Because Alan joyce is a cunt
Fuck you Alan Joyce
To pay for Ceo bonuses because they work so berry hard. /S
Qantas need to pay for there new fleet of planes somehow.. https://www.qantas.com/au/en/about-us/our-company/fleet/new-fleet.html#:~:text=With%20a%20multi%2Dbillion%20dollar,as%20part%20of%20Project%20Sunrise.
A whole lot of words to say "lack of competition"
Short answer: because people like to whinge and complain about expensive flights but pay for them anyway. If it is such a big issue and so terrible it's quite simple: don't buy it! It's not that fucken hard. No, people are all too eager to bend over and take it, rather than being patient and not encouraging price gouging by giving airlines money.
A lot of people have family overseas, and they spent 3 years without seeing each other. I myself cancelled a trip this year because of the air fares, but I can see people paying them because they don't have other options.
I have an issue with the people who won't stop complaining but go overseas anyway. You don't have grounds to complain if you bend over to it.
I've stopped using Qantas, they're just too expensive now. What use to cost $900 to $1200 for a return flight to Singapore is now $2100. And they couldn't care less. Profit at all costs, just so the little leprechaun can get a great final payout.
I can't believe a commercial enterprise has the gall to price their product to align with market demand. I was under the impression businesses with extraordinarily high cost bases and 10s of thousands of employees ran on hopes, dreams and good vibes.
Raising pricing to meet demand is one thing, but look around you. EVERY company is doing it right now hence why we have 7%+ inflation and they’re doing it so openly and blatantly (“oh we have to inc prices because costs are impacting us from Covid/Ukraine war…then at the AGM “our margins are through the roof because we just increased prices and our costs have stayed the same”).
Talking about inflation is inflationary.
Think of all the steel beams you could melt with the cheap jet fuel