Qantas risks large fines, losing slots at Heathrow for late A380s: internal memo

[Bad Adventures]

Qantas risks large fines, losing slots at Heathrow for late A380s: internal memo (http://www.smh.com.au/business/aviation/qantas-risks-large-fines-losing-slots-at-heathrow-for-late-a380s-internal-memo-20150416-1mmciq.html)

[Nigel747]

This sure sounds like a problem that belongs to Flight Operations and not the "people focused" Base Ops.

Also, they could use two or three more 380s to fix the problem.

[Ngineer]

The way this aircraft is handled from an engineering perspective is entirely different to the way the Boeings were. It is a complete cluster, one that I am sometimes glad to be watching from the sidelines.

[DirectAnywhere]

This is largely a result of rescheduling to improve aircraft utilisation.

The wunderkind that sat in the office and worked out the new schedule that would work in a perfect world had no idea that aeroplanes don't operate in such a state of nirvana.

There is simply no fat built into the international schedule to allow recovery due to delays. Something as simple as a passenger lost in duty free can snowball into a couple of days delays.

As an example, the aircraft that used to operate the QF64 from Joburg to Sydney arriving about 3.30 PM used to operate the 21 at 2130. It now generally operates to LA as the 17 at about 6pm. A delay on the 63, snowballs into the 64 and the 17 and can't be recovered until the aircraft has 3 or 4 hours on the ground in LA.

Said wunderkind will have left the building with a nice bonus while flight ops staff try to pick up the pieces.

[rammel]

The minimum international turnaround time (not a transit) for a B744 was 3hr. That was achievable, but even then a 10 minute delay somewhere could potentially jeopardize it. Most of that time was spent on cabin cleaning. To cut the time spent cleaning you need more staff as it is a labor intensive job, and that's one thing I'm pretty sure QF hasn't increased. Also the A380 is larger than the B744. I'm sure one of the rocket scientists at QCC would have got a pat on the back for his bright idea. I'd bet it wasn't run by any front line staff for their input. Once again, the smartest guys in the room.

Apparently they only bought the A380 model that fixes itself. They should have also bought the optional self cleaning kit.

[swh]

There is simply no fat built into the international schedule to allow recovery due to delays. Something as simple as a passenger lost in duty free can snowball into a couple of days delays.

Lots of fat is you fly at M0.87.

They can make time up by burning more fuel, however the easier commercial decision is to delay passengers and keep your costs the same.

The minimum international turnaround time (not a transit) for a B744 was 3hr.

Can do it in an hour in Asia, everything takes longer in Australia.

[Evanelpus]

This, from the article....

A jack damaged the horizontal stabiliser in the tail of Charles Kingsford Smith.

In the words of Kevin 'Bloody' Wilson, this sounds f:mad:g painful mate!