Qantas adds A330s to Perth-Melbourne, ups DFW to daily
In good news for those who are unimpressed with its aged 767s, Qantas has announced a large increase in A330 frequencies between Perth and Melbourne and the withdrawal of the now aged Boeing twin-aisle jet from the route from 15 October.
From that change over date the current timetable for 44 weekly rotations by the Airbus wide body jet will be lifted to to 68 weekly, of which 37 weekly will be in its much more generously spaced international configuration on the route compared to 25 flights with the better seats now.
The 767 had a long and popular role in Qantas domestic operations, but all good jets wear out their welcome eventually, as their fuel economy, maintenance costs and reliability lose touch with the efficiencies of newer types, and they were originally targeted for replacement by the 787 order announced in 2005 for deliveries starting in 2008.
The Qantas announcement doesn’t say where the additional A330s will come from in terms of its current use of the type in both domestic and international formats, which includes the -300 and -200 versions of the airliner.
In context, this is part of the capacity and quality contest Qantas has joined with Virgin Australia, which is also using A330-200s on its major Perth transcontinental services.
Qantas has previously announced the reintroduction of two class 747-400s on the Perth-Sydney route from 9 July.
The airline says it will also bring its Australia-Dallas Fort Worth services using 747-400ERs up to daily frequency from a current six rotations a week to daily from 1 July.
DFW is the major hub of its alliance partner American Airlines.
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“The Qantas announcement doesn’t say where the additional A330s will come from”
Does this mean it will (i) buy/lease new aircraft (ii) use spare capacity, eg now idle jets or (iii) chop some routes?
Roger , Qantas is about to drop the Sydney-Auckland -LAX return route which was operated by A330s. At least two full time planes
Let me ask a silly question: given just about everyone knows Qantas B767 is ageing and they are buying B787 to replace it (but being late), why hasn’t Qantas try to lease some A330 or even younger B767 as a stop gap measure? I am sure it’s not too hard to lease a few A330 from the market in short notice (it seems like Virgin Australia were able to do so)? Would it due to more business reasons (such as to reduce liabilities on the balance sheets) than anything technical?
Well done QF on the obvious success of the DFW route – it must be doing well for them to bring it up to daily.
Or should I wait for the inevitable spin from some nay-sayer claiming that this is a last, desperate measure to try and lure passengers onto their empty planes by increasing the frequency?
This sounds all good. However, where the hell are double the number of wide body jets going to park in Perth? Perth Airport [Qantas domestic terminal} seems to be a permanent building site where disembarking is routinely away from an aerobridge and pax groping down truck stairs.
Itfisher , if plane parking is a concern then aircraft tugs could be a problem as well.
I remember recently sitting on a taxiway in a B777 at Melbourne for 20 mins after landing
as they had an issue with availability of tugs to pull out an departing plane from the terminal
Lucky Qantas are getting those 787s first! Oh…..wait…..
Wow. Daily flights SYD/DFW on 747-400ERs sure sounds like a winner for Alan Joyce and his friends. But sorry for asking silly questions: how do they do this when they a) only have 6 of these in the fleet and b) when in any case, each return trip for a particular a/c is well in excess of 24 hours? And leaving spare ERs for the SYD/SCL flights?
Having wowed his audience with fictional Asian airlines, has AJ now defied the laws of physics and matter, creating whole 747-400ERS out of thin air? I’m sure Boeing would be very interested to hear how this is achieved.
OR, perish the thought, will there be some flights that are performed by the RB211 powered 744s? Anyone for an enforced beach holiday in Tahiti (transfers – for the lucky ones – by life raft, then French Navy included at no cost) ?
Or, more likely, will
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