He’ll need Government approval, but then again the Concorde situation has him in the Ministerial good books here (not that I’m insinuating anythging!)

Looks like the regular Conc seats will go up in price, whereas some new Economy seats will cost about 50% of the regular price.

It depends on how many seats he can get in – I don’t think he can move from 4 to 5 abrest seating or really add too much more legroom.

It’s a nice idea but if I worked for VS’s finance department the practicalities would scare me. What’s to stop business travellers (who would otherwise pay full fare) from just going for a cheap auction, maybe hedging against a reufndable Upper Class seat?

To an extent, the Australia routes have been the making of some Asian and Middle-Eastern airlines (SIA and Emirates spring to mind).

I believe there is a large market for flights Europe-Australia and certanly Italy and Greece could justify services. I also think there is a market for UK flights from somewhere like Manchester. The BA/Qantas duopoly has conastrained growth and I think there is latent demand.

1. The BA/Qantas flights always seem full (and these are always B744 operated) despite quite high prices and fairly good frequencies ex-LHR.

2. There must be some extra demand (mostly leisure oriented) which would be created if average fare prices came down. I tried to book a ticket MEL-MAN for in July and prices were around £1,200 rtn in Economy. The cheapest I ever paid personally, was £747 rtn in Economy LHR-MEL. Ignoring “specials” and a few yield management quirks, average prices are very high and probably beyond the means of most (multiply the price times 4 or 5 for an average family, then add hotels….it’s a helluva lot!). In theory, the weakness of the Australian Dollar relative to Sterling (and the Euro, for that matter, though to a lesser extent) makes an Australian holiday good value for Brits, apart from the cost of the flight which destroys all the value you would otherwise get.

3. Conclusion – a very viable concept, even given the opportunity cost of tying up a whole bunch of aircraft. The main problem would probably by political (typical BA obstruction to anything incolving VS, plus what are slots like at SYD or MEL or other biggie Australian airports?)

4. Just a thought – do you think The Bearded Wonder’s bucaneer spirit would like the idea of taking on Qantas, and flying via LAX or SFO, instead of the Far East?

Yes, but the point is that Reebok only does these things because they can. A business is amoral – it merely seeks to make money. The task of regulating business and safeguarding individual rights, in any country, is the job of the government.

So the blame is at least 50/50 – Reebok do if through greed, but the governments involved also do it through either greed, tribal/religous malice, or incompetence (take your pic).

It’s funny that campaigners don’t ask for say, the Indonesian Government, to be held accountable but they don’t hesitate to condemn Reebok.

Ja, I’m really confused by your sentiment. The international airlines have abandoned Australia in droves and yet you are unhappy when one of the world’s leading carriers wants to start flights there?

As far as I know (I stand to be corrected, this is just from memory) the following airlines no longer fly to Australia:

KLM
Lufthansa
Olympic
MEA
Alitalia
Air France
Iberia

And I think Stateside, only UAL flies down under?