July certainly is peak for flying to Europe and with school holidays in early/mid July it’s a double whammy.
I’ve paid $1700 return. Singapore was offering $1300 return to London the other day.
The peak of the European summer travel season in June/July, especially during winter school holidays is the busiest time of the year for European flights in Australia so that probably has something to do with it - Albeit I was looking at Qatar ex.Perth for May/June and was still getting flights to Europe and the US around the $1200/return mark.
Maybe run your preferred dates through Google Flights to see if any other competitors are doing any better.
I might have to skip the middle eastern airlines then and have a look at some others like Singapore. I’ve just always flown those airlines and never seen prices that high.
Not sure whether to put this in the travel thread or the driving & traffic thread, so…
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/melbourne-airport-slashes-terminal-parking-fees-by-up-to-20-per-cent/news-story/2e445b0ad5a69c77b7cba3f9b3f3ce37
I notice in recent weeks that Melbourne Airport has ramped up its radio ads, promoting the convenience of parking at the airport instead of outside car parks.
I think a lot of Australian airport corporations have overbuilt when it comes to long term airport parking.
3 out of 8 longterm carparks at Perth’s Airport terminals are currently closed due to lack of demand (one of those has never ever been used after it was built), the other 5 are never more than 50% full, even during peak periods (and I’d hazard a guess that a signficant percentage of that 50% is airport staff). I guess Melbourne Airport has crunched the numbers and is confident that they’ll get more than a 20% increase in carpark patronage.
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Hopefully they will have reduced car parking prices.
Airports overcharge for everything.
Does anyone recognize the scenery in this ad?
(sorry for the quality of the cap).
Skyline is too small to be the Gold Coast, but I can’t think of anywhere else that has a curve in the coastline like that. Not hilly enough to be Far North QLD. Sunshine Coast was the other thought.
That looks like the Sunshine Coast, with the distinctive rounded mountain in the distance on the above cap being Mt Coolum.
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I paid €5,90 for a single cappuccino at an airport in France once (that’s $9). I’m still angry two months later.
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I ended up changing my dates to a couple of weeks earlier and it’s saving me at least $1100! It seems once you hit the last week of June that the European peak season kicks in (and school holiday’s here) so prices just jump. So now I will be flying out 8th June on the Queens Bday weekend and got return flights on Eithad for around $1600. I’m used to paying around $2k on Etihad (which I’ve flown a few times) so that’s a big plus.
Although another factor in getting my flights down in price was going through Virgin Australia. My partner booked the day before me through Etihad but by the time I got around to it Etihad flights had gone up. So instead I booked on Virgin Australia which were much cheaper, and all 4 of my flights (there and back) are on the exact same Etihad planes. I thought that was bizarre. I know Etihad and Virgin are partners but expected at least one of the flights to be Virgin.
Yeah I often find I keep all my leftover coins to spend up at an airport but then you end up getting very little for them. The more touristy the city of the airport too the more you often pay.
Codesharing can be very weird like that.
Sounds like you got a good deal, especially since you’re still flying on a long weekend!
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Sydney need to sort out their public transport. I think I could walk quicker than some of their train services.
managed to get the final kids spots on the pacific aria for a cruise out of brisbane in septmeber during the school hols. taking the 2 kids to noumea and port vila
I fancy they underestimate the number of patrons who just get dropped off at the door thus avoiding paying any parking fee whatsoever, and it may go down even further IF the rail link is ever built (I say if because we’ve heard it so many times before).
Brisbane has one, Sydney has one, Perth is getting one, and Adelaide is irrelevant.
Only Melbourne doesn’t have a train line
For all the faults of the major airports, at least they’re not like Port Macquarie in that there’s no baggage carousel at arrivals in the Port. It’s pluck your bag from the back of the trailer when it pulls into the space. To be fair there is going to be a terminal upgrade in the near future and a carousel is in the plans. Still can mark that place off the list of places visited.
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Adelaide are getting a tram line to the airport. Its basucally bang in the city anyway.
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What about Hobart, Canberra and Darwin 
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Liberal Party said on its state election platform that it would scrap the proposed tram line to the airport. Now that the Liberals won the election tonight I am afraid it will become reality.