the direct Italy-Australia flight is the most profitable in the country – Corriere.it

With 727 euros of profits for each passenger transported by Qantas aboard its Boeing 787s, the only direct Italy-Australia flight, the one between Rome Fiumicino and Perth, is also the most profitable of all connections – national, international, intercontinental – operated there past year in our country. A figure that is net of the incentive package provided by both the Western Australian government and the Italian airport. And that does not take into account the income from the goods transported in the holds of the aircraft. what emerges from the analysis that the Courier carried out on the financial documents of the Australian carrier, on specialized platforms and on the statistical bulletins of the Canberra Department of Transport.

Fifteen hours in flight

On June 17th the connection between the Australian city and the Italian capital resumed for its second year and has already been confirmed for 2024: the weekly flights remain three (per direction) until October 3rd, all operated with the Boeing 787, for a total of 22,184 seats put up for sale. Flight QF6 technically takes off from Fiumicino and ends in Sydney, but the aircraft makes a first stop in Perth waiting for the carrier to inaugurate the direct flights from the Australian east coast to Europe with the Airbus A350-1000s, which will also be the longest of the aviation history.

Full planes

In the months of the past year in which it performed the route – also in that case from the second half of June to the beginning of October – Qantas transported 20,311 people (in both directions), with an average occupancy rate of the aircraft around 94 %, according to the calculations of Courier on official data, but reaching peaks of 96-97% in the central months, ie July-August-September.

The budget

The aircraft used for the route, the Boeing 787, has 42 seats in Business, 28 in Premium economy and 166 in Economy. And also this combination – according to insiders – which helps the profitability of Qantas on the connection. Because against 31 million euros in total costs – of which 9.6 million for kerosene – the historic Australian airline recorded revenues of 45.8 million euros, according to estimates by the Courierfor net profits of around 14.8 million euros, i.e. 726.2 euros per passenger transported.

The incentives

As written, these numbers are net of the incentives provided by the Rome Fiumicino airport for each new route – as practice in the sector, lasting two to three years – even more so if intercontinental and unique like this one. And also net of part of the 65 million Australian dollars (40 million euros) package from the government of Western Australia – where Perth is located – to restore international connectivity in the area. Furthermore, the figure does not even take into account any extra services purchased for the flight such as seat selection or extra baggage in the hold.

Goods

The other source of revenues for Qantas concerned the transport of cargo in the holds of the planes that flew between Rome and Perth. In this case it is not easy to estimate the proceeds given the different nature of the goods. Reading the official data recorded by the two airports, the imbalance of the material loaded is striking, due in small part to the type of route and its different duration (40-45 minutes more for the one to Rome), but above all to the flows of exports with made in Italy products that dominate: and in fact between June and October 2022 the total cargo to Perth was 283.3 tons, that to Italy just 0.6 tons.

Comments

Last year the Rome-Perth route was one of the most popular within our network and bookings show that the situation has not changed, explained Cameron Wallace, CEO of Qantas International, in a statement. Rome has been confirmed by Qantas for its attractiveness and market response, as well as for the role played by Fiumicino as a reference hub for offering connection services, adds Ivan Bassato, Chief Aviation Officer of Aeroporti di Roma, the management company. We have also noticed that many customers have used the flight as a gateway to continental Europe – confirms Wallace -, going above all to Sicily, Athens and Barcelona.

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