QF 747 Retirements
 

From the official Qantas Half year announcement to the ASX today:

The arrival of Qantas International’s first two Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft in late calendar 2017 enables the retirement of Qantas’ two oldest 747s by mid-2018. A total of five 747s will be retired as eight Dreamliners enter the fleet.

Going to miss looking at the Queen of the skies. Must have been a great gig for those that flew them.

Me too... at least two examples have been preserved for posterity in Longreach and Wollongong (and even better that one of them is VH-OJA).

It will be a sad and for some a very emotional day when the 747 finally departs from Qantas. The 747 really epitomizes the "real" Qantas. I sort of see the future departure of the 744 as the end of what once was a great and respected airline throughout the world into one that really has no soul,and is no different from any other offering out there. That's no reflection on my fantastic workmates but a direct reflection on how the company is run, which unfortunately is the way of the world these days.

There is nothing that compared to arriving at LHR or LAX or even SIN and seeing a line up of those magnificent 747 tails with that big roo standing proud, you felt special to be part of it. Unfortunately a little single 787 red tail in the middle if a sea of ugly Middle East A380 tails doesn't really produce the same pride.

The Spirit of Australia is nearly no more.

100% Envy from me!

So the other 6 will be in service until 2022 as they announced a year ago?

The total order of 8 787 replace 5 744(two older ones and OJS/T/U)
The 6 newest GE powered 744 will stay subject to decisions on fuel/Maintenance et cetera.
Not sure the 787 can do SYD-JNB or SYD-SCL so that's 4 aircraft staying for a while.

Soooo.... 747 RIN?

Is it only Casa that prevents twin engine widebodies on the Australian register doing South American runs as Air Nz & Latam do it with their 787s.

I think the 744 divisor has been very high for quite some time. OJM is due to go in a few months but it's been 'slow flying' so not sure that will have much of an impact on crew hours. The only route the 744 loses to the 787 in the next 12 months is three times a week MEL- LAX. So it'll be late 2018 before any excess 744 crew starts to become an issue. With a few Captains approaching 65 on the 744 they may not need to RIN in that rank.

So 18 months or more before a RIN may come into play? Perhaps they'll consider it as part of the 18/19 training year allocation and do a bunch of 'redeployment' slots on other types.

To Keg or anyone else who knows:

What is a RIN?

Cheers!

"Reduction in numbers."

For example when the 767 was retired from the fleet, crew were redeployed to other fleets by a RiN process that is largely set out in the Enterprise Agreement.
Some may be demoted, some may be lucky enough to take up slots in there current rank on other types.

Thanks C441 👍

Keg,

Suspect your close to the mark. Won't be till 2018/2019 744 surplus becomes an issue.
Think retirements will take care of any surplus depending on rank.
Having said that I can't see a lot of promotional growth if 8 787 replace 5 744 leaving.
Certainly in the CPT ranks I can't imagine many senior 744 crews wanting to go Airbus and potentially not passing the conversion. Those that wanted to make the switch did so in the last Rin/Redeployment.
So it would be 787 or be close to retirement anyway. Redeployment from 744 to 787 be reasonably speedy Boeing to Boeing? That's dependent on a SYD or BNE base for the 787.

I know exactly where you're coming from as I spent many wonderful years with the company and my father before me - he also played cricket for Qantas with Hudson Fysh and met him many times. I'm not sure it's accurate to say it's lost its soul though. Once again, I completely understand what you're saying but in my view, any soulessness was during the reign of one James Strong who hated the Qantas name and everything about it. He single handed tried to convince the Board to change the name allegedly. He threw a lot of good people out the door, mostly the near-do-wells survived while he brought in a bunch of cronies including one who had to resign for feeding his own consultancy company with Qantas work, another who was more concerned about the bird poo on his office window and chewing gum on the escalators than actually caring about the company and sent a belt-tightening memo world-wide at the same time as he was taking delivery of his company purchased BMW luxury car. This period was soul destroying for anyone who loved Qantas. However, I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately after discussing with a number of former colleagues the 100th anniversary. I think people of the era we talk about were either new to Qantas half way through it's life or like me and many others, were children of people who were directly connected to the founders. I'm sure there are companies a lot older than Qantas who are still respected that if you brought people back from the days of their founding or the generation after would say similar things. Companies change over time, many core things stay the same, Qantas is still respected around the world even if we don't see it so clearly in Australia. Mind you the constant carping of tall poppy cutting Australians bagging it at every chance (many of whom have never flown with it) doesn't help. But I think overall, there is still something about Qantas that is enduring and which has outlived all the bad management in the past. It survived Strong, it survived Sir Lennox and it survived CO Turner, all of whom I am told were not liked at all and viewed in much the same light as the current CEO. There are changes happening yes, but some of these are essential and aren't necessarily management's fault but rather the result of stupid government policy on both sides in selling Qantas, then allowing every tin pot airline in the world, even ones banned in Europe to fly here and squeezing the company to the point of unfair competition. I'm not a protectionist but many of these airlines are STILL owned substantially by their governments and money is no object or fuel is virtually zero and they therefore do not create a level playing field. Qantas is one of the few among those that has to make a profit or else. With that sort of ridiculously tilted playing field, Qantas has to make changes and sadly that means changing some of the things it's done for many years. We may not like it but it's preferable to having no Qantas at all until such time as the country wakes up and starts putting some priority on Australian businesses over foreign ones. I have worked for many companies since but I carry a huge amount of Qantas around with me in everything I do and that is a testament to its endurance as a brand that it will always, always be my first choice above all others - I don't care if their boarding passes are covered in gold leaf, I will still take Qantas over the others.

It will be a sad day for all, when the Pacific Baron's Chariot is retired.

Yes....
 

Exactly what you said. Except my family and I tragically now (and we all resent it) travel on other airlines as well. Flying home spending $20-30k+ when you are parked beside the (now bastardised beyond recognition) Flying Kangaroo is a quixotic moment. I'd rather give it to the airline, but a) it doesnt often stack up and b) Elaine does not deserve anyone's money.

Sorry to hear that V-jet. Maybe one day we'll get you back. Thankfully for us, obviously not everyone feels the same. As is evident with the loads. We must be doing something right to show these results. Elaine doesn't get all of it.

You can say that again but he also had a lot of fellow travellers. And the revolving doors continued during Dixon's tenure as CEO. The number and quality people who came and went during their tenure in office was breathtaking. They were not happy days for those who belonged to the Red Team The goings-on would make an extraordinarily interesting read but I suspect that the current laws of libel would preclude its publication.

Fair enough, I also know and respect where you're coming from. I don't really care that much for the new livery but I can see (with a design background) the rationale behind it - I thought the last one, the Hulsbosch effort was pathetic and a mangling of the very sound Lunn/Dyer design of 1984. The Lunn/Dyer version needed a minor revision but I hated what he did to it. But then again, while I always loved the flying kangaroo, I did appreciate how dated it was when the 1984 change came along. It came from an era when designers just slapped a pair of wings on any object and thought it was design. I think the nose art of the new livery is a nice tribute. Having said all of that, I also remember when I started at QF in the 80s, fresh out of Uni and having grown up around and loving the company, there were more than a few people around even then that bagged everything about it, said it was worse than any of the other airlines, etc. so the negativity was always there. I do appreciate thought that LOTS of change has since happened which is hard to take.