A marriage of inconvenience
Some years ago I flew on the inaugural Qantas flight from Singapore to Mumbai.
The Qantas top brass on the trip had much to celebrate. International expansion beckoned. Mumbai was another city to circle on the airline’s destination map. The future looked bright.
Two years ago, Qantas dumped the Singapore-Mumbai service, handing it over to code-share partner, Jet Airways, founded and majority owned by London-based businessman Naresh Goyal (net worth $600 million, according to Forbes).
At the time of dumping Mumbai, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said the airline’s International business was "a weakness" – as it still is today.
Arranged marriages are traditional in South Asian society and for Qantas, India’s Jet Airways – in which Etihad now has equity – brought into the partnership a dowry of a solid route network in India.
Back in Mumbai recently, flying Jet Airways to and from Singapore and connecting to Qantas flights to/from of Australia, I was able to assess how this marriage of convenience has benefited Qantas passengers.
In a word or three: Not a lot.
I flew out of Australia on a wide-body Qantas jet and after a six-hour transfer wait at Changi Airport I was squished into single-aisle Jet Airways Boeing 737 at Singapore for an overnight international flight to Mumbai, more than the five hours away?
Going by my experience of the Singapore-Mumbai flight there is a mismatch between the products and the services Jet Airways and Qantas offer each other under the code-share arrangement.
While the boarding experience on Qantas flights was smooth, Jet Airways appears to ignore its own carry-on baggage limit of 7kg with the result that overhead lockers filled quickly with oversize bags and cabin crew had to call ground services for assistance.
Another quibble is that Jet Airways in Mumbai uses what appears to be the budget terminal at the impressive new Mumbai International Airport, bussing its passengers to the plane because of a lack of air bridges.
Food on both Qantas and Jet Airways was comparable – unexciting chicken and rice, or vegetarian for Jet; unexciting beef, fish or pasta for Qantas.
Both sets of cabin crew presented well – a mature, all-male crew for Qantas flying back into Australia and a young mixed crew for Jet, whose smart yellow and black uniforms for the female attendants are a winner.
Singapore Airlines recently announced that it would operate A380 aircraft on the Singapore-Mumbai route, so the question has to be asked: Who will you choose to fly to Mumbai?
SQ and the A380 or Qantas/Jet Airways and the B737?
While the Flying Kangaroo is lowering its sights, others are raising theirs.
by Ian Jarrett
Ian Jarrett
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