Qantas extends Boeing 747s for Sydney-Honolulu

I think they are just delaying retirement and squeezing revenue out of it while other A330 routes are being juggled, or planes repainted or serviced.

Yes Booked for August and shows 747. I'm hoping it goes back to A330 before then but not holding my breath.

Having just flows SYD-HNL-SYD on 7 Dec and back 9 Dec, 747 was 85% full, including 100% J seats filled. Having compared HNL PE and J fares compared to Asian destinations, QF is definitely pricing aggressively, with PE coming in at around ~$1600-2000 return and business for sub 4,000 - not bad strategy to squeeze utilisation out of the ageing 747 and drive numbers. I would also note that later in December (as at a couple of weeks ago), pricing remained aggressive, sans typical QF holiday premium. I also noted the flight is an AA codeshare and there were quite a few AA passengers onboard, which can't hurt seat filling either. At least from my limited experience, seems like right aircraft for the job (assuming aggressive pricing).

Qantas will be missing a very important slice of the market once the 747 goes (sub-400 seater). I do hope that with the recent reprieve in fuel that they are able to extend the 6 ERs at the very least.

Sweat the asset. It's money for old rope, and the A330 can be utilised elsewhere.

Maybe they realise that the extra seats are required. While very fuel efficient, the 787’s don’t have the seats of a 747. QF will most likely need an additional service at least some days a week to service HNL.

I can see another A330 lease or two happening to fill the gap before maybe 787-10s come in to take up the regional slack from around 2021.

Lots of A350/787/777Xs are expected to be freed up in 2019/2020 production slots should Etihad cancel their orders, which is rumoured to be highly likely!

A Mel-Hnl direct flight by qantas 787 would be great.

Is Qantas going to buy any Airbus A350's

I agree with Aidan. Once all the 787’s are in place, and a few additional ones have arrived, I see SYD to HNL being a daily flight, and say three a week will commence in MEL. This would bring total services a week to HNL to ten. Maybe the A330 will take place of one of the 787’s.

Just updating this: we can advise that the red-tailed jumbo will be headed to Honolulu all the way through to August 29, 2019.

I just returned from family holiday to Hawaii in November and we flew on the Qantas 747 both ways in business class. Both flights were full in both business and premium (had friends in premium class) both ways and if economy class was not full then it was by only a few seats. The service, crew, meals, flight were faultless, I can't rave enough about how great Qantas was and to be on the 747 again was magic.