There is very significant growth yet to be experienced in the domestic market and there has been much discussion about the shortages of ground staff and pilots but another problem is the terminals. QF domestic terminals are bursting at the seams and this has been made worse by allocating some of the bays for Jetstar's use. The lead time to design and construct extensions to the terminals is lengthy and management need to be doing something about it now.
OhForSure
I was under the impression that the 330s were to (eventually) be replaced by the latter 787s... I spose this will be subject to capacity requirements? I ask this because the 787 order as it stands doesn't look so crash hot if it replaces all 29 767s and all 22 330s. Some rough and quick maths shows a growth of 1 aircraft!
You can count the 20 B787 options as firm orders ie 15 B787-8's and 70 B787-9's (minus 15 to 20 for Jetstar) replacing 29 B763's. I understand that "Not Again" is correct in that the A330's will be staying on a bit longer as they are a young fleet. I suspect that the further 30 commitments for the B787 will be the -10 variant which will be used on some of the current B744 routes as well as new destinations. I don't expect many more A380's past the current 20 on order and they will replace the 4 B743's and a number of the older B744's. From 2011 through to 2015 the B744 fleet will reduce from the current 30 aircraft down to just 9 (OJS/T/U and the 6 ER's). The current plan for the B737 fleet has just one B734 aircraft leaving mainline (for Jet Connect) in the near future so with the 5 + 31 B738's on order, there will be a huge increase in the number of pilots required for mainline - career progression is finally restored and I expect that there will be rapid progression to command for current F/O's and S/O's. Providing QF can actually recruit enough pilots then I believe that many will be in the RHS within two years. If they can't recruit enough then it will slow the expansion down as, for example, they would not release B744 S/O's for B737 F/O training until sufficient new recruits are endorsed on the B744.