Airline Economics

[ChrisGreaves]

I am staggered by a recent news article "Emirates Makes Big Changes To Perth & Brisbane Flights" in which I find:-
"The horrendous-sounding 06:00 departure, ahead of a 10.5-hour flight, is common from Australia back to Dubai. This is mainly because it feeds ~25 Europe-bound flights, along with Johannesburg and other important markets."

Aussies will probably have a better mental picture of that statement than North Americans, but I expect that all of you carry a mental map of the world (Mercator projection!) and can guess what comes next.

Google maps says Perth-Dubai is about 11 hours by air and Dubai-Johannesburg is about 7.5 hours. Perth-Johannesburg is 13 hours.

Of course, if I were traveling from Perth to Johannesburg I would take a direct non-stop flight (well, where ya gonna stop in the Indian Ocean?) at 13 hours, rather than about 19 or 20 hours with a delay in Dubai.

I am confident that the accountants at Emirates can do their sums. Emirates has way more accountants than Chris Greaves Inc ever had. So the economics of shunting human bodies around the world is a sound and profitable business practice.
But I am still reeling at the reported fact that my departure time from Perth (0600 hours local time) is influenced by the number of people traveling from Europe to South Africa.

I am still trying to put this into words, but airlines now dictate your breakfast time (in Perth) at 4a.m. on account of the needs of business people in Frankfurt and London.

Cheers, Chris

[Jay Freedman]

Chris, I didn't read that quote the same way. I believe the routes being served are, for example, Perth-Dubai-Frankfurt or Perth-Dubai-London or (maybe) Perth-Dubai-Johannesburg, not Frankfurt-Dubai-Johannesburg.

Also, if it's like North American pricing, the one-stop Perth-Dubai-Johannesburg itinerary may be considerably less expensive than a non-stop Perth-Johannesburg flight.

[ChrisGreaves]

Chris, I didn't read that quote the same way. I believe the routes being served are, for example, Perth-Dubai-Frankfurt or Perth-Dubai-London or (maybe) Perth-Dubai-Johannesburg, not Frankfurt-Dubai-Johannesburg.

Hi Jay, and thank you for this view.
I still see Dubai as a Hub for Emirates, just as Atlanta Georgia USA is a Hub for Delta (?) airlines and Toronto is for Air Canada (which is why I have to pay to fly two hours West and then two more hours East before my journey to Paris really starts. Also why it takes 36+ hours to get back to Bonavista FROM Paris.

So now I can read that the 6am start in Perth is to interlock with Hub arrivals and departures

Regardless, Dubai being the Hub for Emirates suggests that anyone can take a direct flight from wherever they are to Dubai, and from Dubai a direct flight to wherever they want to go, for example Johannesburg.

Also, if it's like North American pricing, the one-stop Perth-Dubai-Johannesburg itinerary may be considerably less expensive than a non-stop Perth-Johannesburg flight.

I'm not sure of this either. I think of the cost of a (full!) flight being roughly proportional to the cost of fuel to fly, with each take-off/landing costing extra fuel to get up to Adelaide.

Probably I was most struck by the area bounded by Perth, Dubai, Johannesburg being close to an equilateral triangle.
(pause)
No. I still think that it is airline economics that means I'd leave Perth at 6am BECAUSE Dubai is the hub. Visions of about 25 flights landing at Dubai in the space of thirty minutes, a mad game of musical chairs, and then 25 flights departing within thirty minutes. All this machinery governed by the airlines need to minimize overheads ...
Cheers, Chris
P.S. Air;line Economics is not my forté. C

[BobH]

Hub and Spoke Model Airlines Example

The airline industry revolutionized the hub and spoke model. Airlines operate out of a centralized hub and use regional airports as the spokes from which they offer flights. Aviation experts acknowledge that the hub and spoke model resulted in the rapid increase of the airline industry thanks to an increase in the efficient use of relatively scarce air transit resources (only a certain number of airports exist, for example).

The smaller regional airports (the "spokes") transport passengers to one of the larger centralized hub airports. From there, a connecting flight can take them to another regional airport. This is more efficient than having numerous direct routes ("point to point") from regional airport to regional airport. The disadvantage of this model is felt primarily by the passengers, who might experience delayed flights and increased transit time by getting on two different flights rather than one direct flight.

Congestion at centralized hub airports can also cause dissatisfaction among travelers. Although many large airlines believe the advantages of the hub and spoke model outweigh the disadvantages, some smaller airlines are capitalizing on the service gap of offering regional point-to-point flights.

-https://bizfluent.com/13721308/hub-spok ... s-examples

[ChrisGreaves]

Hub and Spoke Model Airlines Example

Thanks Bob! I read this and had a flashback!
Back in the early 90s I made a despatch system for Cottrell Transport in Toronto. They were a Less Than Truck Load service with hubs in (I think) Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver. Also Cottrell Air at the Toronto airport for really fast shipment.
My model developed a wobble until I realized that all shipments via Cottrell Air went by road for Ottawa, Montreal and (perhaps) Quebec City. Not air.

Cottrell had worked out that packages were faster by road from their main terminal in Toronto direct to Ottawa and Montreal. Cottrell Air required shipment five miles away to the airport, arrival there at least x hours before departure, form-filling etc so that by the time the plane lifted off, the parcels could have been more than halfway to their destination city. On top of that, there were delays at the other end (landing, clearance, trip from airport to hub, transshipment to local delivery).

You live and learn.

Came the day to install a copy of the Toronto system in Montreal. Cottrell asked me to drive the XT chassis(pl) to the Montreal Office; in my little 4-cylinder Hyundai Excel. I asked them why, when they ran a trucking system. "Because we don't trust our handlers to be be that gentle with computers"!

I did get paid ... a lot!
Cheers, Chris