The Premium Conundrum Continuum...

Good morning, cafe patrons. I hate to serve up the same brew two weeks in a row, but I can't help but be flummoxed by this back-and-forth going on in the Antipodean market at the moment with regards to first/business class strategies.

In last week's cafe I talked about the new IATA report showing that premium traffic globally seems to be picking up, and the Asia Pacific region in particular is looking fairly healthy. However, during the last few months all we seemed to hear from Qantas, Air New Zealand, BA and a few other airlines was that the days of premium travel were drawing to a close. Or that at least a future much closer to economy class would be the new norm.

Although I'm pretty sure Qantas execs aren't yet frequenting this humble little cafe for their Friday Morning cuppa, I feel a bit vindicated following some of the comments QF leadership has been saying over the past few days. But I'm also a bit confused, to be honest. Which is easy to do, I get up early to open the cafe so sometimes I'm a bit bleary-eyed with all this airline stuff.

At the Australian Tourism Exchange this week in Adelaide, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce and Executive Manager Rob Gurney both made statements about the importance of premium products as they talked about deploying more A380's in the coming months complete with the new first and business class products. In addition, Stephen Thompson who is Qantas' GM of International Sales also stressed the importance of the premium product and the business travel market within Qantas' overall strategy.

So which direction is this going? I think it's safe to say that the A380's coming on line soon will of course have the new first and business (and premium economy, for that matter) products as part of the service as those cabin configurations have been set for a while.

But then in another article this week from Travel Daily Australia, according to travel agent GDS queries the Sydney-Buenos Aires and Sydney-San Francisco services will not get First Class back on those routes until late September - more than three months later than previously planned.

And I've also not yet heard any mention of putting the B747 back onto the SYD-JFK service, so as of early July it will still be a downgraded A330 on that route. Sure, I've flown that half-empty plane from LAX to JFK but I've also experienced every return flight from JFK-LAX as completely full so I would think that Qantas would prefer customers on QF metal rather than on feeder flights via American Airlines.

As I've always said, you couldn't pay me enough to be an airline revenue manager and certainly I'd be lousy at it anyway. However I'm sure whoever's running that department, along with the head of on-board products for Qantas, must be scratching their heads as much as I am as to what the premium strategy for Qantas really is.

EXTRA SHOT FOR THE DAY

Today's extra shot is taking a shot at cranky taxi drivers. Especially ones in Sydney who seem to not want to take passengers from the airport to the Inner West.

A friend of mine claims 5 straight journeys home with drivers who have given him all sorts of grief about waiting at the airport for hours only to get a "short fare." I've had this before as well, but not nearly as much as this gentleman has. And as he actually probably is going a bit further than I do in terms of how far the crow flies, I certainly can't understand why any cabbie has a gripe about "not far enough."

It's not like they have the right to gripe anyway, as the taxi charter clearly states that a passenger has the right to go to pretty much any destination in the Sydney metro area.

Not to mention that how do we know whether the cabbie's fare TO the airport wasn't a nice big fare so he's just annoyed he couldn't double up the success?

To be fair, I have to say that although this has happened to me in Sydney by far the worst city in the world for cabbie grumbling is New York, thanks to the flat fare from JFK to Manhattan. It's not like I set the price guys, so don't take it out on me!

Ah, if only we all could have London Black Cabs...the world's greatest form of public transportation. Clean, very comfy, with a driver who knows exactly where to go and the best way to get there. Happy to pay a premium for that level of service every time...take note, "Silver" Service!