Qantas today announced that it would introduce daily A380 services between Melbourne and London and six A380 services per week between Melbourne and Los Angeles.
At present, two return services between Melbourne and London via Singapore each week are operated by the Qantas A380. This will increase to five services a week after Qantas’ eighth A380 is delivered, six services a week after its ninth is delivered and daily services when its tenth A380 arrives. Melbourne-Los Angeles services operated by the A380 will increase to four a week with the delivery of Qantas’ ninth A380 and to six a week after its tenth is delivered.
Qantas currently has six A380s in service. It expects to take delivery of its seventh in the final quarter of 2010, enabling Sydney-London A380 services to go daily, and to have received the tenth aircraft by March 2011.
Qantas Chief Executive Officer, Mr Alan Joyce, said the steady growth in A380 operations on Melbourne-Singapore-London services would add capacity and allow more customers to experience Qantas’ award-winning product and service on the aircraft.
“We are delighted to be making this commitment to introduce daily A380 services on one of our flagship routes,” Mr Joyce said.
“The Qantas A380 first flew between Melbourne and London in January 2010, and we consider it a priority to increase the frequency of those services when the next tranche of A380s begins arriving from late this year. Not only will this benefit customers travelling from Melbourne to London, it will also enable a connection to A380 services for Qantas passengers flying into Singapore from Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
“Melbourne-Los Angeles is an equally important trunk route for Qantas, so we have also targeted an increased frequency of A380 services to serve this market.
“More than 550,000 passengers have flown on the A380 since it entered the Qantas fleet in 2008, and customer feedback about the aircraft has been outstanding. It has won several awards for its Marc Newson-designed onboard product, including the Chicago Athaneum Good Design ™ Award for its first class suite and the Australian International Design Award of the Year for its economy seat.” Qantas also announced a number of other important initiatives on its international network:
- Qantas services between Sydney and Johannesburg will increase from six per week to daily from 21 September 2010 (South African Airways will continue to codeshare on all these services);
- Qantas will expand its codeshare on British Airways services between London Heathrow and Europe to include six new destinations: Rome, Milan, Toulouse, Prague, Warsaw and Budapest (available for sale from 14 June and for travel from 21 July 2010). This will take the number of Qantas codeshares on BA services beyond London to 29 destinations in the United Kingdom and Europe. Qantas will also increase the frequency of its codesharing on services between Heathrow and Nice, Stockholm and Amsterdam. The expanded arrangement follows the authorisation earlier this year of the Joint Services Agreement between Qantas and BA for a further five years from 2010.
- From November 2010, Qantas will upgrade its four-times-weekly service between Sydney and Manila (including one service per week via Brisbane) from a Boeing 767 aircraft to an Airbus A330 aircraft, delivering more capacity and a higher level of product and service for customers on the route.
“Together, these initiatives are a comprehensive demonstration of the strength and depth of Qantas’ international offering in terms of network, frequency and service,” Mr Joyce said.
More A380s to LHR, SIN, and LAX. Daily B744 SYD-JNB, and A330 replaces B763 on all SYD/BNE-MNL flights.
Anyone know if Qantas Management will continue to hobble the QF brand in favour of Jetstar [who have the new metal] by persisting with the 767s to HNL ???
From 6 April 2010, QLink also replaced Jetstar on the BNE ROK route and took some services back from JQ on the BNE MKY route.
The Orange shine is finally starting to wear off...
I totally understand the need for a 2 brand strategy to stimulate the market and provide an alternative business model on low yield routes, but not to the point where they are simply replacing red with orange in order to save a few bucks on crewing costs.
I suppose thats the advantage of the 2 brand strategy. When the market is up premium travel prevails and they will use QF and chase yeild. When the market is down they will remove QF and use Jetstar and chase bums on seats with low fares to stimulate the market.
As much as we all bitch and moan it seems to work. QF can launch two brands onto one route and obliterate the competition and stop another carrier like Tiger competing on the route and eroding their own market. QF dictate what the low cost market price is along with the premium.
Except for their rumoured expansion into Southern Europe at the end of the year.........
That "expansion" will be JQ Asia, no Oz jobs being created.
Quote:
I thought you would be thankful for the orange shine as it has been keeping Qantas profitable for so long....
It looks like you take QF Group accounting figures at face value. Capt Kremin and others have proved how erroneous they are.
Re the thread topic, it could be argued that there is expansion as there will be an increase in seats as the rest of the A380's are delivered, but all they are really doing is replacing B744's on existing routes. I'd like to see genuine growth into new markets and thus spread the risk instead of relying on a few trunk routes.
All that is happening is that QF are beginning to utilise spare capacity; there is no actual growth in mainline except for a small amount on the A330.
Nevertheless the Group is profitable, mainly from the Domestic arms of both QF and JQ. Four or five years ago, before J* Intl, the QF A330's were pulling in a motza on the PER route. I believe the same is now happening again. Lets hope someone doesn't get another incredible brainwave; like sending them to a LCC of dubious value like J* Intl and replacing them with a totally unsuitable and decrepit aircraft like the 747 classic.
QantasLink announced it will begin its first Intl route
Some may not remember, or decide that this does not count...
Airlink had a wet lease Dash 8 operation DRW-DIL around 10 years ago. Whilst outsourced to NJS it was definitely QF flight numbers, not a codeshare. Around that time ASP-AYQ was also ops by a wet leased Dash 8.
Qantas will upgrade its four-times-weekly service between Sydney and Manila... from a Boeing 767 aircraft to an Airbus A330 aircraft, delivering more capacity and a higher level of product and service for customers
Deploying an A330 over a 767 an upgrade? Don't let Keg hear that!
Sorry to disappoint you Capt Kremin,but what I am hearing from my mates in Engineering is that the jumbos are set to make a return to Perth in the near future.
Apparently there is a rush on to get the right licences in the right ports and the jumbo is set for western skies as we speak.Maybe something to do with the World Cup,but also talk in Planning about scraping the A330 services on the PER-SIN run and combining them into a B744 run thru to LHR.And the A330 will be put on to other Asian routes.
replacing them with a totally unsuitable and decrepit aircraft like the 747 classic.
How much did that exercise cost QF I wonder?
That's one calculation you've got wrong sorry Kremin! The Classic made a motza on that run, in spite of its problems.
'Twas very rare to have less than 450 PoB (full was 467) on the aircraft. Both classes had inseat IFE (albeit fairly average) and full inflight service including meals and booze (important for the east coast FIFO!); yields were high.
What tha?
,DJ share price struggling 
,yields up.....just need the QANTAS SOCCEROO'S to win in Seth Efrica
