Qantas Airways to do away with first-class seating on some international routes

Qantas Airways, the national airline of Australia, has decided to abolish temporarily first-class seating on 42 of its weekly long-distance international flights between July 6, 2009, and October 31, 2009. During this period, Qantas Airways, which is also Australia’s biggest airline, will offer only business, premium economy, and economy classes. 

The airline said it would also charge for an exit-row seat with extra leg room – the additional price ranging from Australian $80 (US $62) to Australian $160 per ticket for economy-class passengers on international routes, depending on the length of the flight. 

Singapore Airlines, the national airline of Singapore and Asia’s leading carrier, had, in November 2008, given customers a choice to get seats at the exit row for a fee of $50 per sector.

Qantas Airways said in a statement that it would temporarily remove its first-class travel from its Boeing 747 aircraft on 14 weekly routes.

These would include 4 routes between Sydney (Australia) and San Francisco (the United States), 3 routes between Sydney (Australia) and Buenos Aires (Argentina), and its daily services between Melbourne (Australia) and London via Hong Kong.

Rob Gurney, executive manager (commercial) of Qantas Airways, said in the statement that, as a result of the global economic recession, Qantas had experienced reduced demand in premium-class cabins.

“We will monitor demand on these routes carefully and aim to reintroduce our first-class offering as soon as possible,” he added.  

The media quoted Derek Sadubin, of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, based in Sydney, as saying that the changes that Qantas would make in its seating, affecting about 7% of its weekly international flights, comes in the wake of weakened demand for global corporate traffic.

He said that the low demand has hit premium-classes travel industry-wide and discounting has continued to erode profitability. 

The move by Qantas Airways to reduce premium-class seats, Derek Sadubin added, was a way of trying to ensure that the carrier’s load factor (a measure of how many paid seats it fills) remained buoyant. 

In April 2009, Qantas Airways had warned that it would post its first second-half loss in six years and also announced cuts in capacity and jobs to cope with what the airline described as fall in passenger demand and increasing competition. 

According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), airlines the worlds are heading for a loss of $4.7 billion in 2009 owing to the global economic depression that has led to reduced passenger and cargo demand.