Anyone running a book on the chances of an announcement at Paris (which kicks off next week)?
Or (and this is pure speculation) an order involving the 747-8 (given Boeing are saying it will be able to do YSSY-KJFK direct)?
Alternatively, QF might be joining Emirates in pushing for Boeing to develop a 787-10... Boeing have been pushing back on that as it would eat into the(now fully-amortised) 777 programme.
That said, any 787-10 would be several years off (even if work started now) so 777 would be available rather sooner.
Mr Seatback 2,
NZ use their triplers on the London-via-HK run, also.
One suspects that the rat will be wanting to get as long a set of legs as they can on any 777s they acquire; this has been the theme of any comments they've made on the subject in recent years (eg. going back to '02) and when the 787 order was placed last year (or was it '05?) GoD explicitly said that 777s were not ordered at the time as the "commercial guys" couldn't get the profitability sums to work in terms of yield/load mix and service reliability year-round, both ways.
Maybe a couple of years of improvements in aerodynamics, engine technology and weight-saving measures, plus some in-service experience of the various E/LR 777 variants gleaned from other carriers, has enabled them to update the spreadsheets.
ATEOTD if you can make it go to London from Sydney then you can use it to anywhere in between. It doesn't really matter where it'll go - it either works in the fleet, or it doesn't. The 330s weren't 'supposed' to other than domestic but guess what they do now?
These things (airframes) have an in-service life of usually 10-25 years so the use plans made when first acquired are unlikely to stay the same throughout such a time-frame. You don't see any -300s at EGLL these days, even though that's what they were bought to do.