Limited gains seen for MAS, AirAsia from Qantas debacle

PETALING JAYA: Asian and Middle Eastern carriers are likely to increase market share on the lucrative Kangaroo Route at the expense of Qantas, whose brand will suffer serious damage after it grounded flights over the weekend due to a running dispute with its unions.
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But the window of opportunity for the two Malaysian carriers is seen to be limited because of a lack of capacity, frequency and connectivity on the Kangaroo Route.

In comparison, carriers like Singapore Airlines (SIA), Emirates and Etihad will get “a bigger bite of the market share'' given their frequency, capacity and connectivity capabilities,'' said an analyst.

“There are drawbacks for thecheap nfl jerseys free shipping Malaysian carriers compared with SIA, Emirates and Etihad ... it is also the geographic nature of the game,'' Standard & Poor's Equities Research aviation analyst Shukor Yusof said in Singapore.
Location wise, KLIA may be at the centre of Asia, but Changi has the transit passengers that carriers want and SIA and Emirates the frequency, connectivity and capacity.

The Kangaroo route is essentially the route from Australia to London via an Asian destination and most analysts say Singapore is the link in Asia as it offers a larger number of transit passengers both into London/Europe and Oceania.

A report notes that Qantas also competes with SIA on routes linking Australia's major cities and Singapore, and from the republic to various European cities such as London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.

The report said that three of the top four routes out of Australia in terms of passenger numbers are actually the Australia to Singapore routes and SIA also has the second largest market share currently out of Australia, behind Qantas.

“It is not just about picking up passengers but the ability to provide the connectivity and for that SIA stands out,'' adds Shukor.

Both Malaysia Airlines (MAS) and AirAsia X (AAX) provides connectivity to various cities in Australia from KLIA but not from Singapore.

AAX has offered to help ferry stranded passengers in and out of Australia during the standoff over the weekend.

The airline did ferry some passengers but it could not say if it had new bookings as a result of the Qantas standoff.

Sydney is also still close to competition from KLIA. This is despite Pemandu listing Sydney as one of the 10 cities with the least connectivity from KLIA, yet the route has not opened up.Cheap NFL Jerseys
Some believe the Qantas standoff is akin to a “missed opportunity for the Malaysian carries to capitalise on the Qantas' despair,'' and AAX chief executive officer Azran Osman-Rani said “it is missed because we are not yet allowed to fly to Sydney.''

Other carriers seems to be working faster, Australia's Virgin is already working with SIA to possibly use the latter's 777 aircraft to fly the backlog of passengers out of Australia.

“Had we the connectivity and capacity, we could have offered to fly the passengers out since MAS has close ties with Qantas, but was that explored,'' said a source.

Over the weekend, Australia's dominant carrier Qantas had to ground all its aircraft, affecting nearly 70,000 passengers. It resumed flights yesterday.http://bleachonline.heavenforum.org/t122-limited-gains-seen-for-mas-airasia-from-qantas-debacle