How quick some forget 16 August 2011.
Building a Bigger Qantas
The Qantas Group today announced it would acquire up to 110 Airbus A320 aircraft, plus 194 purchase rights and options. These aircraft will facilitate capacity growth across Jetstar’s domestic and international operations, the launch of Jetstar Japan and the establishment of Qantas’ new premium Asia-focused airline. Qantas will defer the delivery of its final six Airbus A380s by up to six years, driving substantial capital cost savings. Qantas’ A380 fleet will reach 12 aircraft by the end of 2011 and 14 aircraft by mid-2013.
The deal is worth $9.5bn for 78 A320neos and 32 A320s, which will be used to help Qantas expand its short-haul business in Asia. The remainder of the A320 order will go to other new ventures, including Qantas’ premium airline serving the Australia-Asia market, and to renewing Jetstar’s global fleet – giving us the flexibility to meet growth requirements where needed.
Now There are still A320s coming off the line and being delivered into Alan's driveway and the A320neos have not even started rolling yet.
Hello? Wonder why there's no money for anything else
And this
Building a Stronger Qantas Sydney, 16 August 2011
From April 2012, we will expand our partnership with British Airways. This will see the consolidation of our Qantas flights to London through Singapore on our A380s.
We will also partner with British Airways to fly onwards from Bangkok and Hong Kong to London. This is part of our strategy to reduce loss-making, asset intensive flying, while continuing to provide great connections and Frequent Flyer points for travellers to the UK, and other destinations in Europe. Valuable Heathrow slots will be preserved for future access requirements.
- The Kangaroo Route and the Pacific Route are our iconic, flagship routes. We will have more of our award winning A380s on daily services to Los Angeles from Sydney and Melbourne,
and on our daily service to London via Singapore from Sydney and Melbourne.
And we know that Chinese travellers rate prestige brands and safety as among their top travel priorities.Today I can confirm that Qantas intends to invest in a new premium airline based in Asia.
This joint venture airline will have a new name, a new brand, new aircraft and an exciting new look and feel. The airline will not be called Qantas but it will leverage all our Qantas know-how, making the most of our excellence in brand management, aviation safety, customer experience, finance, marketing, and our valuable corporate customer relationships.
For the first time in our history Qantas intends to fully participate in the benefits of an Asian aviation hub.
We will be offering same day services to and within Asia, and overall frequencies to Asia from Australia will grow.
We will be able to feed traffic into the new hub from Europe and Australia, and Asian ports.
http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airl...eech/global/en