Australia’s Qantas Airways said yesterday it would discontinue or reduce a number of international services, mainly to Japan and Southeast Asian destinations, to cut costs in the face of high oil prices.
The announcement comes a week after Qantas unveiled changes to its domestic network in order to cut capacity by around 5 percent.
Chief executive Geoff Dixon said in a statement that the cost of fuel had changed the way the Qantas Group had to do business over the next two years.
PHOTO: AFP
The airline will cancel its thrice-weekly service between Melbourne and Tokyo starting in September; reduce the number of weekly return flights between Sydney and Tokyo to seven from nine; and end the Jetstar service from Cairns to Osaka and Nagoya starting in December.
It will also replace 14 weekly Cairns to Tokyo flights with daily flights on Jetstar, its discount carrier.
LOSSES
“At current fuel prices, the Group would lose more than A$100 million [US$95 million] operating to Japan under our existing schedule,” Dixon said.
He said the new schedules still offer significant capacity of more than 11,500 seats a week between Japan and Queensland.
Jetstar will withdraw its Sydney to Kuala Lumpur service and replace Qantas on Perth to Denpasar and Jakarta flights starting in December.
Dixon said there would be a small number of jobs lost in Australia and Japan as a result of the changes, in addition to job losses from last week’s domestic changes that are “expected to be in the low hundreds.”
Last week the airline unveiled changes to its domestic network after announcing a A$2 billion increase in its fuel bill in the 2008-2009 financial year.
The airline will retire aircraft, close some routes and shed jobs in an effort to control costs.
“We will continue to work with individual markets and look for opportunities as conditions improve to address capacity issues and reinstate services where and when we can,” Dixon said.
CUTTING COSTS
Airlines around the region, including such leaders as Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific, have been trying to cut costs as rising fuel prices over the past year have eaten into profits.
Jet fuel prices have risen to record levels this year, with the price of crude oil doubled on the New York Mercantile Exchange to a record of US$135.09 a barrel last month.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2