QF Freight A332’s
Was reading yesterday that before heading off the DRS for conversion EBE undertook some training flights on the East coast with EFA/AAE crew.
Is it safe to assume the Express Freighters guys that currently fly the 3 A321P2F’s will also fly EBE and EBF?
Also does anyone know what the plan is for the sole 763F once EBF arrives back in August?
Is it safe to assume the Express Freighters guys that currently fly the 3 A321P2F’s will also fly EBE and EBF?
Also does anyone know what the plan is for the sole 763F once EBF arrives back in August?
Yes, only management pilots /trainers have been qualified/re qualified on the 330, but regular line pilots will start conversion mid year
No retirement date is currently set for the only 767
regarding your comment “is it safe……”..for info, a number of 321 pilots have also 330 experience.
Last edited by 74world; 15th Feb 2023 at 17:29.
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Too bloody right! The advent of certain people from Melbourne led by JBT. saw an efficient company become very inefficient. It wasn’t possible to buy a paper clip or bog roll without meetings being held and project teams formed - a complete waste of time and money. I suspect that it’s much worse today.
The same 'source' in supply told me about a certain 'large' man who had been brought in with the clutch of cronies from down south to be the head honcho of finance. Many will know this person from the stories of complaints calling the Airport Manager on a Sunday to tell him/her about chewing gum on the escalator at the Qantas Domestic Terminal and going spare allegedly when he arrived and his chained off reserved parking spot in Valet had been used (some enterprising Valet employee who knew they were busy had cut the chain and shock, actually used the spot for a paying customer) ordered two 'cow leather' in-trays. The supplier I was told had to make THREE versions because fat-guts kept returning them because they looked a slightly different colour in the afternoon sun. In the end, the supplier 'allegedly' told the head of supply to tell the above senior manager that he'd been in the business for 40 years and you can never match these things in all light because the part of the cow they come from doesn't contain enough skin to make two of them and made a rather anatomical-based suggestion that if he didn't like it, he was free to keep all 6 of the trays on the proviso he inserted them up his arse.
Not a surprise really, that same company, from whence the Melbourne invaders sprang, had a big opening of a City Freight Terminal in the 60s I think. I know because my father was invited to the opening. The first truck rolled up, drove through the new shiny facility and then and ONLY THEN, did it dawn on the geniuses from 'god's gift to aviation' that they'd obviously copied the design from a US operator and guess what? Name the main thing that is COMPLETELY THE OPPOSITE as far as any road vehicle is concerned in the United States, compared with Australia?
They built the bloody thing for left-hand-drive and NO ONE even bothered to look at the plans or ask the question until the $M's had been wasted. From what I'm told they had to jury-rig the thing to make it work. Reminds me of another example in Melbourne of the trains being 'privatised'. Some electrician friends that worked for one of the contracted maintenance organisations for rail said one of the early private operators imported dozens of new rolling stock and it sat in sidings for ages because they didn't check the voltage of the Melbourne suburban electric rail system and of course ordered rolling stock designed to run on a different voltage (I'm pretty sure they didn't even get the DC part right and ordered the wrong numerical voltage and AC).
We have 5ft 3in broad gauge here, unlike everyone else except SA, I think. I guess back then we should have been grateful that they at least got the gauge right and didn't order 4ft 8 1/2 in or 3ft 6in rolling stock.
Last edited by AerialPerspective; 14th Feb 2023 at 14:04.
Heard a rumour EFA will be doing Mixed Fleet Flying on the A330/321.
This has not worked at a number of airlines and I’ve seen it trialled and quashed by a union. I guess with freight at least there’s only one to share the embarrassment with when you crunch it on or float past the piano keys.
This has not worked at a number of airlines and I’ve seen it trialled and quashed by a union. I guess with freight at least there’s only one to share the embarrassment with when you crunch it on or float past the piano keys.
Read the other day when the A321NEO’s start arriving there is going to be split domestic and international fleets, so straight away you loose that fleet commonality and the ability to rotate aircraft seamlessly around the network, yet another missed opportunity.
Heard a rumour EFA will be doing Mixed Fleet Flying on the A330/321.
This has not worked at a number of airlines and I’ve seen it trialled and quashed by a union. I guess with freight at least there’s only one to share the embarrassment with when you crunch it on or float past the piano keys.
This has not worked at a number of airlines and I’ve seen it trialled and quashed by a union. I guess with freight at least there’s only one to share the embarrassment with when you crunch it on or float past the piano keys.
Lets rewind a bit. TN/QF merger was a mistake. Just so happens it was a big one. Had the employees at the time been asked to vote on the proposal it never would have eventuated. Red into blue,blue into red,it just never coaqulated. Ramifications have been ongoing and still exist today. Aircraft choices and fleet structures right up there with many other negative outcomes. Take Australian Airlines (AO) which existed 2002-2006. Based in CNS operating 5 sub-leased 767-338ER's. One of QF's success stories terminated overnight to make way for Jetstar. On many occasions the QF Group has proved to be it's own worst enemy.
Heard a rumour EFA will be doing Mixed Fleet Flying on the A330/321.
This has not worked at a number of airlines and I’ve seen it trialled and quashed by a union. I guess with freight at least there’s only one to share the embarrassment with when you crunch it on or float past the piano keys.
This has not worked at a number of airlines and I’ve seen it trialled and quashed by a union. I guess with freight at least there’s only one to share the embarrassment with when you crunch it on or float past the piano keys.
But with at least one 330 based in SYD and no 321's, no much chance of mixed fleet flying out of there. Other 330 based in MEL with 9 321's ( proposed) gonna be a rare occasion that its an issue. Of course that could all change
Lets rewind a bit. TN/QF merger was a mistake. Just so happens it was a big one. Had the employees at the time been asked to vote on the proposal it never would have eventuated. Red into blue,blue into red,it just never coaqulated. Ramifications have been ongoing and still exist today. Aircraft choices and fleet structures right up there with many other negative outcomes. Take Australian Airlines (AO) which existed 2002-2006. Based in CNS operating 5 sub-leased 767-338ER's. One of QF's success stories terminated overnight to make way for Jetstar. On many occasions the QF Group has proved to be it's own worst enemy.
Anyway, this manager told me that when he was at Ansett, he was in comms with the very highest levels of the company (this was before a lot of the 'asset reallocation had weakened the AN balance sheet beyond repair) and he told me that Qantas was offered 60% of Ansett in 1990. It was because apparently Murdoch was already bored and Abeles wanted to go and play TNT in Europe. The plan was that Qantas would buy 60% of Ansett for something like $150M and it would include all of NEWS' shareholding and 10% of TNT's. The expectation was that with Abeles withdrawing to TNT and Qantas occasionally being capitalised, the TNT shareholding would eventually wither and AN would become a fully owned subsidiary of Qantas.
I've always thought, looking at the way Ansett conducted business operationally, as a domestic carrier but firmly entrenched in the IATA way of doing things, tick for consistency with Qantas, had IBM (BA-based) Departure Control and Reservations Systems, tick for consistency with Qantas, had a fleet of Boeings including 767s which with some fleet adjustment (getting rid of the 737s) would have fit in nicely with an expanded group fleet. So many other things Ansett did were more international-like than TN.
TN operated with an obscure, Lufthansa developed Res and DCS, a 'toy' system that would, in the interests of getting away on time, allow the load controller to sever the link with check in and 'make up' the final figures and produce a loadsheet. Estimated weights from freight would allow a loadsheet to be issued, QF and AN's system wouldn't, it would warn that weights had not been finalised and would not allow a loadsheet to be produced until all checkin activity had been finalised, etc. Check in could also not make changes without the LC returning the flight to a pre-loadsheet status.
There were a number of loose operational matters that were similar, but at AN they were all of the same ethos as Qantas.
There would have been no reason Ansett couldn't have put a blue tail and a Qantas Kangaroo on it and had the word Ansett in the Qantas typeface. Eventually the operations might have been merged domestic and international as Qantas with the regional arm perhaps retaining Ansett.
One wonders if Ansett weren't the better partner?
We used to ask the question "What have Qantas and McDonalds got in common?" A: "Both being run by a f-cking clown with a bow-tie".
Of course, when the big fight was on as to whether we'd cripple the airline internationally by adopting the stupid TN system (called "TAARSAN"), Qantas instead, thankfully, opting for an updated version of the British Airways' system that the then current Qantas system (Qantam) was based on, the continual joke when they were looking for a name (eventually won by an international Captain who came up with 'Qantas Universal Business Environment' or 'QUBE', who got two J/Class longhaul and $25K I think, or the $25K I might be getting confused with the Staff Suggestion of the Year added to the Staff Suggestion Scheme by J L Menadue) was "They've decided what to call the new system" "Yeh, what?" "Jane. Because it's being f-cked by TAARSAN".
Of course, when the big fight was on as to whether we'd cripple the airline internationally by adopting the stupid TN system (called "TAARSAN"), Qantas instead, thankfully, opting for an updated version of the British Airways' system that the then current Qantas system (Qantam) was based on, the continual joke when they were looking for a name (eventually won by an international Captain who came up with 'Qantas Universal Business Environment' or 'QUBE', who got two J/Class longhaul and $25K I think, or the $25K I might be getting confused with the Staff Suggestion of the Year added to the Staff Suggestion Scheme by J L Menadue) was "They've decided what to call the new system" "Yeh, what?" "Jane. Because it's being f-cked by TAARSAN".
eventually won by an international Captain who came up with 'Qantas Universal Business Environment' or 'QUBE', who got two J/Class longhaul and $25K I think, or the $25K I might be getting confused with the Staff Suggestion of the Year added to the Staff Suggestion Scheme by J L Menadue)
Capt. Lenny Alphabet won that with the name "Longreach".
He did get a pair of Round-the-World tickets….not sure about the $25K spending cash.
Capt. Lenny Alphabet
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If Captain A's surname began with a 'K', his name was often used by a bloke I knew, now long departed, who scheduled all of the companies special flights, charters etc. Whenever Indonesian approvals were required, he had to provide the captain's name. He invariably used Captain K's full name which he thought must’ve confused the Indonesians no end. I bet there isn't any levity like that in Alphabet City these days!
As a new S/O I only did a couple of trips with Len and found him to be a good bloke to fly with when a few other Captains were not so pleasant.
Trying to rewrite history about the TN/QF merger makes me laugh. Both were government entities caught up in the 1990’s spasm of privatisation. QF needed a domestic arm to yield a better market valuation, and the whole was worth more than the parts.
That management completely was unequal to the task seems obvious now in retrospect. The entire project was arguably a good idea barely adequately executed.
That management completely was unequal to the task seems obvious now in retrospect. The entire project was arguably a good idea barely adequately executed.
As a new S/O I only did a couple of trips with Len and found him to be a good bloke to fly with
On 16 August 2011, the Group announced the purchase of between 106 and 110 A320 aircraft with 194 purchase rights and options.
Included in the 110 aircraft are 32 “classic” A320 aircraft and 78 A320neo, being Airbus’ new engine option for the A320 family to enter service in 2015. It incorporates latest generation engines and large “Sharklet” wing tip devices, which together will deliver 15 per cent in fuel and CO2 emission savings.
Included in the 110 aircraft are 32 “classic” A320 aircraft and 78 A320neo, being Airbus’ new engine option for the A320 family to enter service in 2015. It incorporates latest generation engines and large “Sharklet” wing tip devices, which together will deliver 15 per cent in fuel and CO2 emission savings.