scrubbedexpat020

Oasis airlines has been mentioned on the forum a number of times.

FYI - it's applied to go into liquidation.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7338424.stm

this charming man

Well i suppose youve gotta roll with it(some might say).

Racht70

bcworld

That's a shame as it was probably the only half decent airline flying low cost between the UK and SE Asia......I hope no BE'ers have got bookings on Oasis going forward.

DadAgain

Shame...

I was kinda hoping that the SEAsian budget flight operations could start really taking off (pun intended)... and that we might start to see a flow on in terms of cheaper flights across the board - but if these guys go (and Air Macau, Air AsiaX, Tiger etc etc) all start struggling then we might be stuck with the same few 'big players' keeping prices high....

oh well... At least we didnt book our August holiday this year using Oasis (we did consider it - but decided the super-long layover with 2 kids in HK we would've had wasnt *quite* worth the savings)

bridie

My cousin is currently visiting the UK, she flew in on Oasis.......! At least she has another 3 weeks to sort out a return to Hong Kong...

Tom Sawyer

Oasis being a new carrier could not hedge their fuel costs so had to pay current market fuel rates which are currently high. Mix that with undercutting embeded current carriers (Virgin Atlantic, BA and Cathay) to try and attract passengers and problems will occur unfortunatley. Being in the airline industry, I would be surprised if anyone can get long haul / low cost to work, apart from the likes of Jetstar (read Qantas) or Tiger (read Singapore) that basically ofset (hide) a lot of their costs into mainline operations.
Not sure with Oasis whether they are IATA registered as well so anyone who has a Oasis booking may have problems getting another carrier to accept it, although I believe Cathay are doing a deal.

bcworld

Surely hedging is starting to become less and less of a factor now though as fuel costs have been so high for so long - how far forward do the airlines hedge?

If Oil prices continue to rise as they are ($112 today) then I think we'll all have to get used to the idea of paying $3k - $4k for a flight back to Blighty. I worked for BP back in 1998, and the oil price was around $10 then!!!

wheep0

Oil prices will remain high for probably evermore, its a fact of life now.. As someone who has worked in the industry all 23 years of my working life, the total cost ( and this is everything) to get a barrel of oil out of the ground remains anywhere between $ 1.50 and 15$ per barrel, depending on where in the world and what the infrastructure used to get it out.. The reason why Oil is high is not because its running out, its because brokers in New york and London are speculating that in the troubled world we live in, without crude it will all simply stop and Anarchy will reign. And you can forget about your wind farms and eco friendly sources as well, that will satisfy even 0.25% of world power consumption.

Jet A1 being a direct deriritive of Petroleum crude ( like petrol, deisel etc) is subject to massive Tax rates by the govt, hugly hiked up a few years ago ( both in Uk and AU) Taxes on crude and its deritives is seen as an easy option to raise massive amounts of easy cash this is the main reason for raised fuel costs.. Oil is not about to run out, yes we have an increased usage in the modern climate but technology is there now to get huge reserves of Oil from places where even 5 years ago it could not be reached. The world is a huge place and they have only touched the edges of places to find oil.

However if you look at the cost of flights to AU when I first emigrated in 1982to the current costs, you will see that there flights now are only slightly higher or even in some cases cheaper, I flew back and forward AU- UK many times in the 80`s costing £ 550+ for a return ticket, Oil was only $ 12 per barrel, now in 08 I am flying for £ 650+ for a return ticket with Oil at $ 110 pb ( something not adding up there) The major airlines have always had a huge profit margin on long haul flights, far more so than short haul.
Now with the coming of new hugely superior fuel effecient planes ( A380, 787) they will actually use up to 20% less fuel than an old 747 400 between UK and AU.

The days of £ 3k economy flights to AU will not be around until well into our childrens/ grand childrens lifetimes, if at all, unless of course you want to book the most expensive flexible seat a a day before you fly on an allready full flight.

P.................

Wol

Low cost airlines are flavour of the month on a continuing basis - but many run unsustainably, don't actually sell many seats at the low prices advertised and are subsidised by other interests.

Seat prices at around the cost of the fuel used per seat - it doesn't compute. Yet people seem to imagine that these prices are the norm and airlines charging higher must be gouging. Yes, sometimes they are - but they are also trying to run a going concern in a highly competitive and tiny-margin business.

And then the BAA manages to put another spanner in t'works..........

DadAgain

Yes indeed - and I dont expect a huge drop in long haul airfares. However, it would be nice if the market were slightly 'free-er' and us impoverished Australians had access to the same fares as Europeans do on the same flights!.

Whilst BA/QA/Lufthansa etc etc may well not be 'padding their pockets' with economy fares to and from Australia, there can be no doubt that theres no justifocation for Australians paying 50-75% more for seats on the same planes as Europeans. The 'budget airline' model of "heres the our website... heres the prices - YOU work it out" goes a some way to closing that particular equality gap.

Sham Williams

Quick!!