Qantas flights to Vancouver after Boeing 747 are retired

Santiago is going from 4 weekly 747 to daily 787 from late June.

The 3 weekly YVR seasonal requires 1 aircraft.

With the current timetable, HND requires 2 aircraft. The SCL and JNB flights tag aircraft in/out with HND.

They can adjust the flight times for HND, and free up an aircraft, but Qantas is hesitant to do that. They've flown Sydney-Tokyo overnight both directions and parked the aircraft in Japan all day for as long as I can remember.

There are now 11 787-9s in the Qantas fleet, with 3 more due to arrive in the 2nd half of 2020. Are they still planning to get rid of all the 747s by the end of 2020?

Maybe they'll end up transferring the 3 787-8s JQ has been talking about getting rid of to QF mainline, refitting them to the QF 787-9 seating, and use all 3 on the SYD-TYO route (2 for HND with current timings and 1 to NRT with a more 'normal' 90 min turn around).

I agree on the logic of that plan. The 788 is cheaprer than another three 789s and may be optimised for regional as well as domestic Oz routes. Also Qantas like overnight flights as they enable connections at each end and sitting in Haneda all day isn't hugely different to sitting in Sydney Melbourne overnight. There may also be other logistical advantages. The Qantas long hall fleet seems to be settling down to 787s to replace 747s and A330s. The 788s will replace the A332s and the 78-10s the A333s over the next 5 years. The lower priced purchase rights on 50 787s make that a no-brainer. The A350-1000 will replace the A380s in the longer term (10 years) as well the the long distance non-stops to Europe and East Coast US.

Can QF run 2 x SYD - HND without sacrificing MEL - HND ? Seems they will struggle to maintain capacity on SYD - HND without 747s and assuming A380s can't be used due to HND limitations.

The 3 787-8s are an interesting possible addition. I had heard some time ago that the JQ fleet was under utilised, so maybe it fits the argument that they held onto them for this long.

Greg For Qantas extra slots at Haneda they decided on Melbourne and Sydney, they have no hope of another slot in the foreseeable future.

QF can only get more HND slots if Japan releases more slots, and assigns them to Australia, or VA gives up and pulls out.

There has been 3 HND international slot releases since the airport started taking long haul flights again for a total of 296 daily international slot pairs once the new slots become active next year (some of which existed as "scheduled charter" flights to Korea, China and Taiwan prior to the international expansion). Not all have been taken up. Of those 296 slots, Australia has been assigned 6.

It's more likely that VA gives up the Japan route in ~2 years then MILT assigning any slots to Australia before 2025.

If QF were to take on the 3 JQ 788s and refit them to a comparable QF 789 fit out, adjusting for the shorter aircraft, the QF 788s would have something close to 30J 21W 126Y.

Having 2 SYD-TYO (QF21/22 SYD-NRT, QF25/26 SYD-HND), using the 3 788s with such a fit out would be slight premium increase and slight economy decrease compared to the single 747 (+2J +6W -18Y). (or +26J +20W +62Y vs single 744 if they used 2x 789 and sent the 788 elsewhere like HKG)

They will need the three 788s to cover for joburg as well. More work for the Dresden fit-out centre. I suspect the 788s will be for regional and so not have PE. Maybe 250-270 seats.

If Qantas keeps not putting PE on mid-long haul aircraft (eg the A330 refit), then there is less reason for me to book QF flights and I'll instead book flights on CX and JL which do have PE ex AU.