Qantas flying a fuel-laden Boeing 747 to Auckland

Qantas will fly a Boeing 747 fully-loaded with fuel from Sydney to Auckland tonight, a bit of a 'BYO' approach to the fuel shortage at Auckland! This will provide fuel for the Qantas 'JetConnect' and Jetstar fleet. I'm told they will also be looking at reducing the number of trans-Tasman Boeing 737 flights to aggregate them onto Airbus A330s for a better per-passenger economics.

Wow. So on the ground they could just "siphon" off fuel from the B747 into a fuel reservoir?

First of all, I'm a kiwi but this is laughable at a "world class" airport/city reliant on one source of supply with minimal backup capabilities. Air NZ even identified this as a critical issue years ago but nothing was done. Don't even get me started at the lack of public transport to/from the airport.....

I just found out that all bar one of the Sydney - Auckland flights this Sunday have been cancelled! Only option is the early morning 7:05 flight QF144

What's the max landing weight of a 747? Wondering how many planes could be fueled from what would be left in the tanks once she's landed?

I suspect the backlog of pax has made this an economic option for Qantas.

A staggering 50,000kg of fuel, Qantas has confirmed to Jamie Freed at Reuters...

Hi David I am not sure but I think a 747-400ER carries a lot more fuel. I think they carry up to 63,000 US gal (240,000 L) of fuel which is over 170,000 KG .

Might well be so, we're just sharing what Qantas has told another aviation writer.

According to the flight status page, the flight will depart Sydney at 6:50pm as QF6011 and arrive Auckland at 11:45pm. The return should depart Auckland tomorrow at 12:15pm and arrive back into Sydney at 1:40pm as QF6012.

An otherwise empty 747 loaded fully with fuel is perhaps about 40tonnes over max landing weight, not sure of the fuel burn across the ditch, but 50tonnes of fuel would seem to be very achievable.

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Fuel they can be carry would be limited by max landing weight, and what the plane needs to return back to Australia

Good 'ol 747 to the rescue once more ! What ever will we do once they are all gone ?