It's A Good Old Fashioned Fare Ware ... With Any Luck

The US-Australia route is the most expensive in the world (based on my 8 years of trying to pay for those flights). It infuriates me to no end when searching for flights from Los Angeles to Sydney and I see flights from LA to Tokyo for a third of the price. Clearly there is a monopolistic influence occurring - Qantas, do you have something to confess????

But last year Air New Zealand started its LA-Auckland-Adelaide route which offered at least an alternative to Qantas' LA-Sydney/Brisbane/Melbourne-Adelaide routes, but the prices were roughly the same.

Now with the signing of the "Open Skies" agreement being signed while Kevin Rudd (Aus. Prime Minister) was here in the US this week, it is going to be easier for other airlines to schedule flights on these routes.

The first of which is an airline called V Australia (questionable name at best) - which is one of Richard Branson's bazillion companies. Here is the article from The Advertiser.

But here is the rub I fear. I have always found Qantas' service to be exceptional, even in Economy class (the seats still suck, but that is par for the course). So does competition simply drive the quality of the service down in lock-step with fare reductions? If the Virgin Blue airline in Australia (one of Branson's other bazillion companies) or just about any airline in the US these days is any example, the answer unfortunately is probably yes.