Qantas Sydney to Tokyo flights after Boeing 747s are retired

Hi,

What aircraft are Qantas going to use on the Sydney to Tokyo-Haneda route after the Boeing 747s are retired?

My guess will be as good as yours.

They haven't officially announced what equipment will be utilised for this route so until then it's speculation.

They are scheduling a couple of one time A380s

I think they had wanted to use the A380 but Haneda has limited space / parking to handle those, especially because the flights currently land early morning and leave in the evening. I also heard they were considering running up to 2 services a day on 330/787 but given they've used the Haneda slot for Melbourne that probably isn't happening

If Qantas uses a Boeing 787-9 on the Sydney to Tokyo Haneda route after the Boeing 747s retire, would they run a daily service to Tokyo Narita as well because there are less seats on the Boeing 787-9?

My guess is that it's highly likely. After they shift the MEL flight to HND, they have one extra slot for NRT. Perfect for another SYD-NRT flight.

Would it be typical to run 2 sydney to tokyo flights but to different airports? I know its quite common in London and New York, but surely Qantas wouldn't want 2 flights to/from 2 different airports. Quite possible that there could a number of passengers going to the wrong airport for their flight...

I think an A380. They decided against adding capacity and instead relocated the Melb flight. They wouldn't want to add capacity if the intention is to put an A380 on which increases capacity itself.

If they do get the okay for an A380 into HND where do they get the A380 from. It really needs to move to a AM departure and PM out of HND?

Maybe they are still betting on picking up the VA slot at Haneda. It may be difficult for VA to make one flight into Japan work after the Olympics.

They don't have "one extra slot for NRT". They have as many flights to NRT as the airport can accommodate. The only Japanese airport that is slot limited is HND. Australia and Japan have open skies. Qantas can fly to NRT as often as it wants. NRT has heaps of capacity.

They can't use A380s to HND. The airport won't allow it. The only way they can operate the 380 to HND is if the flight arrives and departs during the 10pm-6am night period and no other airline wants to operate and A380 there at the same time. They can't park the aircraft at HND all day like they do with the 747 now. I don't understand why people keep insisting that QF will fly an A380 to HND when it is quite clear that they can't.

In all likelihood, SYD-HND will become a 787 route. If they want to maintain SYD-TYO capacity (and they likely will given how often the SYD-TYO flight is sold out), they'll bring back regular QF21/22 flights to NRT with a A330 or 787 in addition to the HND QF25/26.

Seeing as Japan Airlines has switched from Narita to Haneda, couldn't QF codeshare with them? That way they can offer two flights to Haneda via Sydney, with morning and evening departures to give flexibility to travellers.

QF and JL used to codeshare on their old flights (JL*NRT-BNE, QF*PER-NRT, MEL-NRT), but not the SYD flights. That codesharing ended when the routes were withdrawn between 2008 and 2012 and QF/JL now codeshare via SIN (JL codes on all QF AU-SIN flights, QF codes on the 3 JL SIN-TYO flights). It seems that the ACCC won't let QF and JL codeshare on their non stop AU-JP flights.

The JL SYD-TYO flight times aren't changing much once it moves to HND. The northbound JL flight is so early that connections from the rest of Australia aren't possible except during daylight saving. The southbound flight is overnight. The JL771 and QF22 times were almost the exact same. That's since moved to about 3 hours apart with the QF22 -> QF26 change.