QANTAS OPERATIONAL FLEET

[B A Lert]

All formal Qantas data indicates that it has an operational fleet of six 747-300's. As one of these (VH-EBU) has been at Avalon for many months and is unfit for any flying duty, being without engines and various other necessary bits of hardware, how is Qantas able to make and sustain this claim? For all it's worth, the airplane may as well be in a desert graveyard or is it being kept at Avalon to support and keep the other dinosaurs in the fleet flying?

[Keg]

Word on the street is that the thing will never leave Avalon again. Imagine parking an aircraft in that kind of environment for any significant period of time. I'm not sure I can think of a worse place- OK, maybe the tropics but only by a smidge!

The whole thing is very sad!

[The Messiah]

Cathay didn't see any problems with doing it during SARS when they expected them to be there for 6-12 months.

[Keg]

Yes but I suspect that CX knew that they'd be using them again so they probably had a bit more TLC than this one has had in the interim.