Originally Posted by
Ken Borough
My memory is a tad rusty but wasn't QF's fleet renewal in the early part of the century complicated by the late deliveries of the A380s and B787s? I think the Company was caught between a rock and a hard place. And wasn't the gaggle of A330s the result of a deal from Airbus that couldn't be refused as a form of compensation for the late A380s? It's not that difficult to understand why the B777, however desirable, was 'overlooked'.
For a small airline already operating B737, B767, B747, A330 and A380, and with B787’s late, adding a B777 to the mix over the last 10 years would probably have spelt short-term disaster, given that the B747, A330 and A380 fleet were too young to get rid of, and adding yet another type has its not insignificant costs and loss of flexibility.
Some argue that the B777 fleet should have been ordered back in the late 1990’s when everyone else was ordering them, and QF were still ordering B747’s. Dixon (and I guess Strong before him) looked at it, and said no thanks. He may have had valid range/payload reasons at the time. A decade later, that ship had sailed, and after ordering A380’s, I suspect the decision not to also order B777’s was a good one.
With hindsight, the B777 may have been a better idea than the A380, and they should have given the whole A330/A380 thing a miss.
Picture a simpler, all-Boeing airline, with a gradual transition from B747/B767 to B777/B787 as they retire, and/or as fuel prices and market conditions dictate. That would be what I would define as “lean and flexible” - something this airline has always said it wants to be, but never seems to achieve in practice.
But Dixon wanted the A380. I get that it was as attractive as the latest iPhone, and great for marketing (he was famous for marketing), but that is basically the single decision that has left us where we are now.
In the early 2000’s, Dixon’s CFO expoused fleet simplicity and flexibilty as a reason not to order B777’s. He even used Southwest as a prime example of a highly successful carrier due to their decision to only fly a single type. He also mentioned fleet complexity as a problem contributing to Ansett’s downfall. Shortly thereafter, QF not only ordered the A380, but the A330 as well, and ordered a fleet of A320’s for JQ, despite having a fleet of B737’s in mainline. Go figure. I don’t know what happened to Dixon’s Swiss Bank account that day, or what kind of smoking hot Toulouse girls were waiting for him in his hotel room, but I think it’s fair to say that that’s the day the B777 died for QF.
In summary, I put the current fleet state down to Dixon. I actually think Joyce (that’s his name, Rated De) is dealing with what fleet and orders he has been given as best he can, although I would have put the B788’s on the QF domestic routes and Asia instead of in JQ. Apart from the poor ROI in JQ, they would have given QF an earlier introduction to the fleet, an opportunity for them to gradually phase out the A330 instead of buying more new ones, and would have prevented the enormous internal pilot shortage generated by the massive training requirements involved with the sudden introduction of the B789 on ULR routes in recent times. Furthermore, several years ago, if those B788’s were actually making money on QF domestic instead of losing money in JQ, he may have been able to persuade the Board to continue to buy more, instead of cancelling numerous deliveries. But I’d better keep my mouth shut, because we know what happened to Buchanan when he suggested something similar.
Waiting for the 777X to prove SYD-LHR capability seems to be the thing of the moment, and I would suggest that ordering an aircraft off-the-plan on promised performance and delivery date is something that QF have learned the hard way is not always a great idea, hence the due diligence. I actually don’t have a problem with that.