There's been lots of commentary about Finnair's new Melbourne flight. Part that struck us was how none is supported by any data, just lots of vibes. You'd be less surprised if you saw some data ...

🚨NEW: How to think, not feel about Qantas's Project Sunrise It's provocative: tyranny of distance & inability to compete on cost with one-stop carriers means they don’t have a choice other than a “deal with the devil”! Let us change your mind ... www.analyticflying.com/p/how-to-thi...

🚨Does Qantas really hate Melbourne? Or rather is Qantas really that Sydney centric? See our latest analysis which shows they've become less Sydney-centric while Melbourne has felt the love thanks to Jetstar. Real story is how they've come to love Brisbane! www.analyticflying.com/p/is-qantas-...

🚨💥Absolutely wild Josh Cahill story ... A few weeks ago he posted a scathing critique of Air Côte d'Ivoire, claiming airline & staff scammed him. Following a response from Ivorian Foreign Minister, he quietly deleted it! TLDR 🧵

✈️ 🇦🇺 🇱🇰 A few weeks ago we saw a rumour circulating on regarding Jetstar starting a new route between Melbourne and Colombo. We typically take a dim view of new route speculation, but this one seems plausible. We decided to take a detailed look: www.analyticflying.com/p/is-the-jet...

Virgin’s missing million international seats a boon for Jetstar Thanks to AFR for using our data! Data is available on our updated Capacity Tracker dashboard. Filter data by any combination of airline, city, and country of origin. Link in reply ⬇️ www.afr.com/companies/tr...

Five and a half years! That's what is took Australian international airline capacity to recover what was destroyed in a few weeks by the COVID-19 pandemic. We take a data driven look at just how things have changed. Who are the winners and losers? www.analyticflying.com/p/five-and-a...

Huge milestone in today's BITRE data release: Australian international airline seat capacity finally reaches its pre-COVID level www.analyticflying.com/p/chart-of-t...

💥NEW ANALYSIS: Dismal prospects for trans-Tasman competition A detailed look: 🔴Why Qantas & Jetstar's increasing dominance is bad 🔴Why Air NZ can't respond 🔴Why 5th freedom carriers won't respond 🔴And why Virgin have no incentive to respond www.analyticflying.com/p/dismal-pro...

Finnair A330-300 (OH-LTU) spotted this weekend in the Qantas Silveroo livery getting ready for delivery as VH-QPL in the coming days. Credit to Owen Yue Yijia & Jetphotos: jetphotos.com/photo/11832721

Isn't it ironic how Sydney Airport are shifting the narrative about slots? It's as if they read our article from last month: www.analyticflying.com/p/how-constr...

✈️🏉💰🇺🇸Scheduling fun & games: Qantas's Las Vegas NRL charters! We worked out how Qantas are scheduling 8 long haul charters without empty legs! www.analyticflying.com/p/scheduling...

Qantas's A321 XLR inaugural passenger flights 25 September. Rest of the schedule still to come! QF645 SYD PER 10.35am 1.35pm QF650 PER SYD 2.35pm 8.40pm QF467 SYD MEL 4.20pm 5.55pm QF484 MEL SYD 6.50pm 8.15pm

The Australian government has launched a consultation into an airline industry ombudsman, excluding EU style compensation! Our analysis shows how compensation schemes won't reduce cancellations & delays. Instead, airlines will minimise compensation! www.analyticflying.com/p/eu261-ther...

🚨NEW: Why regional jets are misunderstood and why they wouldn't have worked for Bonza Smaller aircraft have a lower "trip cost", but higher costs per seat per kilometer, making it difficult for low cost carriers to use them to sell cheap tickets! www.analyticflying.com/p/why-region...

Despite a 21 year head start, the 737 is about to be eclipsed by the A320 family in total deliveries. While this seemed unlikely as recently as 2018, is it a disservice to Airbus to frame this as a story about Boeing's failures? www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

🚨Word on the street is Qantas's 🇦🇺Sydney → 🇳🇿Auckland → 🇺🇸🍎New York increasing to daily for NS26 (currently 5x/week)! How much longer can/will Air NZ persist? Route building is a noble endeavour but burning money when fleet availability is scarce seems ... Reminder below:

Just how wacked was Bonza? Each day this week we'll share a finding from our analysis of the report to creditors: 1) Bonza incurred net losses of $134m on revenue of just $115m. That means for every $100 in ticket revenue it cost them $248 to fly!

Just how constrained are Sydney Airport's slots? It's complicated but insights from Sydney's first public Initial Coordination Report shows it's less constrained than you might have thought! Only 66% of slots are allocated compared to 96% at Heathrow! www.analyticflying.com/p/how-constr...

🚨NEW: Ever wondered why airlines always seem to use really old aircraft on FIFO charter flights? There's a good reason: it's all about the peculiar scheduling → flights concentrated on Tue & Wed → low aircraft utilisation! www.analyticflying.com/p/why-does-q...

We passed a small milestone this week with our 500th subscriber! It's not big but it's 500 people who choose to receive our work rather than what the algorithm dictates! That gives us some validation & provides us with feedback about what people want to read.

Revisiting the Jetstar Asia closure: Qantas & Jetstar have significantly increased Asian capacity over the last year, allowing them to bypass Singapore more (data excludes Singapore)! Simply put: they just don't need Jetstar Asia to the same extent as they did a few years ago!

Qantas to close Jetstar Asia: a story of evolving network strategy & changing opportunity cost of capital allocation alongside supply side capacity constraints. Also a story about back luck & tough love. www.analyticflying.com/p/qantas-gro...

Some data to contextualise QF's new seasonal ADL-AKL (4x/week, B738, 31/10→3/5): ✈️NZ returned 7/22, 3-4x/week seasonal ↑5x/week (Nov→Jan): 85% LF last 12m but capacity still ↓ ✈️QR temp 5th freedom 4/22→9/23 🔴QF will add up to 6165 seats/month, clearly a gap to fill!

💥Another Qantas update: confirmation that Sydney-Honolulu will switch to Finnair A330-300s from 30 Mar 2026! First indication of future of Finnair A330s when they switch from wetlease to Qantas operated. This was suggested a few weeks back by some friends here & now confirmed.

Marketing guys have run amok here! How many of these connections are even viable? ❌Westbound ALK-PER-CDG only works one day a week with an 8h connection at PER! ❌Eastbound PER-AKL-JFK also only works one day a week with an 11h connection at AKL!

More US updates from Qantas: 🔴SYD-DFW (Jan): daily A380; prev announced 4x/week A380 3x/week B789 (Aug) 🔴BNE-LAX (Oct): daily B789; prev announced 3x/week B789 4x/week A332 (Aug) 🔴Dec-Jan seasonal: AA takes over 3x/week BNE-LAX (QF ↓ 4x/week); MEL-DFW ↑daily from 4x/week

Following from Melbourne-Honolulu Jetstar → Qantas switch, Jetstar will also exit Sydney-Honolulu from end of Oct 2025. Not surprising after Melbourne shift!

Significant international network changes from Qantas & Jetstar last week: 🇺🇸Melbourne-Honolulu: 3x weekly flight switches Jetstar → Qantas 🇰🇷Sydney-Seoul: 3x weekly Qantas ends this week; Jetstar 4x weekly ↑ daily from next month

Chart of the week #23: How the point of departure of US-Australia flights has & hasn't changed over time Is LAX really that bad? And what's driving DFW and IAH? www.analyticflying.com/p/chart-of-t...

Remember our August 2024 analysis on Qantas eating Air New Zealand alive on Auckland-New York? Full year update coming next week! Any improvement for NZ or did things get even worse? www.analyticflying.com/p/how-much-o...

Why Qantas can't just switch Melbourne twice daily A330 to once daily A380? Avi: London Rosebud: London? Avi: London Avi's Colleague: London? Avi: Yes, London. You know: fish, chips, cup 'o tea, bad food, worse weather, Mary fucking Poppins... LONDON www.analyticflying.com/p/why-qantas...

This was just the appetiser, for the main course, Qantas will restart: 🇿🇦Perth-Johannesburg 3x weekly 🇳🇿Perth-Auckland 3x weekly Both begin 30 Mar 2026. See schedules below:

We’re seeing first NS26 schedule iteration. Specifics like aircraft very tentative a year ahead but some interesting observations for Qantas: 🔴SYD-BKK/SIN return to old flight numbers (not wetlease numbers) 🔴SYD-SIN terminator flight (QF81) shows 2x weekly A380, 5x weekly A330!

It’s just a hunch, but is Qantas going to send the A380 to Haneda?

💥Qantas have delayed the Brisbane and Melbourne Narita → Haneda switch to November citing "operational requirements" 🚩Concerningly, IASC kinda hid this on their website. Not listed on their "Latest Updates" & not part of the usual email distribution!

So we got a surprise announcement overnight from United Airlines: new seasonal flight from San Fransisco to Adelaide! Some context and analysis: 🧵

💥NEW ANALYSIS: Mabuhay! Jetstar's Philippine surprise 🇵🇭 Why Jetstar is venturing into the Philippines & what can we learn about it for their future A321LR plans www.analyticflying.com/p/mabuhay-je...

💥NEW ANALYSIS: How do Emirates, Etihad, Ethiopian, Qatar & Turkish's hubs stack up? A snapshot of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Addis Ababa, Doha & Istanbul's connecting banks! Any guesses which is the leased banked? It's more obvious than you think! www.analyticflying.com/p/how-do-emi...

So a large number of articles this week claiming Qantas’s A350 delayed to late 2026 & Project Sunrise to 2027. But this isn’t news 🤷🏻‍♂️ Delivery delay confirmed as far back as Feb 2024 & it was always obvious they couldn’t start PS until 3rd aircraft.

Chart of the week: Where Australians traveled in 2024 Any guesses on the top destinations? Check out the cool interactive map showing how the popularity of destinations changed in 2024! www.analyticflying.com/p/chart-of-t...

Say what you want about the Qantas-Jetstar strategy, but one thing the Jetstar international expansion is doing is driving a less Sydney/Melbourne centric network! See examples for Brisbane & Perth:

Huge news from Jetstar this morning via IASC application. Jetstar planning to launch two new routes to the Philippines in Nov, operated by A321neo LR: 🟠3x weekly Perth-Manila 🟠3x weekly Brisbane-Cebu

Following up on our thread on the A380’s “cargo weakness”, we wanted to throw in some empirical data to show it in action: Qantas have a route where A380 consistently operates alongside B787-9. Luckily, data allows us to compare cargo loads on this route by aircraft type! 🧵

We’ve spoken several times about the A380’s “cargo weakness”, arguing it isn’t well-suited to Qantas’s cargo-heavy Asian routes. While this isn’t the only reason they're not often scheduled on Asian routes, we thought we’d put together a thread explain it in detail 🧵

An example of what we were talking a out:

📸Snapshot from our Capacity Tracker: 🔴Sydney has lost ground in its international capacity market share; Melbourne also lost ground, but much less 🟢Brisbane & Perth are the beneficiaries, both increasing market shares by meaningful magnitudes!

Foran stepping down as NZ CEO. Comments to various sources have been generous; we'd argue he's jumping ship! 🔴Results poor once ↓fuel prices & interest rates stripped out 🔴Fleet issues worsening 🔴Big bet on ULH → their yields aren't good enough (already getting eaten alive by QF→JFK)

Both decisions were good! 🟢747s were due 4th D-check requiring them to commit to them for 4-6y at high operational costs; remaining fleet too small to generate efficacies 🟢737 fleet is big; will take decade to replace; those getting refurb aren’t old & have plenty of life left

Virgin have finally appointed Jayne Hrdlicka's replacement: congrats to the government & unions for blocking Paul Jones's appointment as CEO, so instead they'll get a Bain alumnus, Dave Emerson. Jokes aside, he's a real airline wonk!