Qantas Perth-LHR
 

In the next hour or two, the long awaited Qantas non-stop flight from Perth to Heathrow is about to leave Perth. I noticed the ETA is around 04:30. Is that correct? It seems to me to be the most inconvenient time to arrive at Heathrow. Are the passengers, having endured a 17 hour flight, going to have to sit around for an hour or two on arrival for ground transport to "wake up" and get going?

STA is 05:05 (except for today's inaugural, which is 05:10). By the time pax have passed through immigration, baggage delivery and customs there should be plenty of ground transport available.

The first scheduled arrivals at LHR are HKG and CPT at 04:45.

So no hotel option for 9 hours after 17 hours of flying. Ooooof!

Kelvin what do you expect on a flight that takes most of a day from the extremes of the planet. However you cut it one end is going to be as you put it stupid o’clock !

Heathrow has arround 16 to 18 flights land every day before 6 am .

They have enough handlers at least one runway available 24/7 controllers and ancillaries workers that start at 4am each day.

It not an issue !

Though imho this particular flight is pretty much close to the publicity stunt as it gets and effectively takes out capicity with a relatively marginal time saving from Melbourne to boot .

Still Qantas say they have turned round their economical fortunes particularly domestically so back to losses on a marginal Long haul then I suppose.

Oh and more low yield but far more numerous cattle class handed directly via the desert

Looks like the airline flying to a schedule to suit itself not the fare paying passengers; how about a passenger friendly schedule like lunchtime off Perth. landing at about 22.00; hotel, glass or 2, sleep then no jetlag!

Going by data on Flightradar24 QF9 will land at Heathrow at 02:55 tomorrow morning ?

0255 UTC, 0355 BST.

Isn't there a restriction at LHR that early scheduled arrivals after 0430L are not allowed to land before. If the Qantas makes good time then ATC may have to hold it for a while before it is vectored to approach and land. Alternative is to slow down en-route so this doesn't happen.

There is no way it will land at that time, regardless of what FR24 says.

I really do not understand all the fuzz about this flight. It is an improvement only for the relatively small Perth market. For Melbourne as a much bigger market, it is just another stopover instead of somewhere in the sandpit or in SE Asia - unless you get a kick out of the fact that you step onboard the aircraft in Australia and step off in the UK after having endured 17h + on board.

Possibly clocks going forward so showing wrong?

17 hours from Australia to the UK is fairly good Going .
Did they not state that there are to be Direct Flights to either Sydney Brisbane and Melbourne?.
Surely the latter cannot be non stop .

You're only looking at this flight/aircraft in isolation. The aircraft utilisation is LAX-MEL-PER-LHR and return, or will be once to route gets established over the next few days. Aircraft to do not generally get dedicated to one sector. What timing may suit pax on one sector would knock the other sector.

I wonder if Norwegian will be interested in a similar route with their 789's?

So, well done Qantas. The flight arrived at a couple of minutes after 05:00.
Virginblue makes a good point. It may be a 17 hour flight but QF9 originates in Melbourne so add on 4 hours for that part of the trip, plus time on the ground at Perth.
Ignoring time on the ground (Perth & Dubai) and the total flight time of both routes is more or less the same, at least for the Melbourne passengers. One big difference though is the number of passengers. The A380 service has 480 seats and the 787 has 230 (both numbers approximate).
So I am a bit puzzled re advantages to Qantas with this flight change.

That's an easy one - fly from LHR to PER direct and non-stop. Hoping to grow the WA market with inbound tourism and cut out ME3 competition.

The MEL-PER-LHR vs MEL-DXB-LHR arguments were debated extensively in these columns when the route was announced a year or so ago.

I don't think anything has changed in the meantime.

Anyone who's flown QF economy will understand why they couldn't muster 480 victims in one go :)

With the lower number of seats on the 787 they are probably hoping to get a yield premium for the PER traffic that prefers nonstop.

But as others have said if I'm going to SYD, BNE or MEL I'll be sticking to an A380 via SIN (or anywhere for that matter) thanks

Ultra long flights have been available on various routes for several years - and TBH they haven't set the world on fire

It really only appeals to First/Business Class traffic

Anyway, all is well. Simon Calder is taking QF10 to Perth this afternoon. During an interview on the BBC earlier today, he quoted an Australian blogger (I wish I could remember the name) who was on QF9 and didn't have a particularly rosy view of the flight, complaining of a lack of comfort. No doubt Mr Calder will have reams to write about the trip and I am sure we are all agog, hanging on his every word!