Why is Qantas parking planes in US?

Anybody any idea why Q is parking planes in US instead of Australia. Would have thought it would be much cheaper to keep them in OZ not to mention operationally more convenient and supporting domestic economy. Understand a number of Asian carriers are using OZ so why not Q?

Qantas have an engineering/maintenance base at LAX, so having the A380s stored at Victorville (about an 1.5 hour drive away from LAX) will keep the team occupied in keeping the aircraft maintained whilst stored there.

A couple of reasons:

• As noted by cxflyer - the A380's are going into long term storage at Victorville - this is a good option
• The 747's are not coming back
• The best local storage in Aus is the facility outside Alice Springs (see here), which, as best we know - full...

Qantas have parked many, many planes in Australia.

Singapore have planes parked all over the world too.

It makes operational sense to keep the planes near the maintenance bases and where they fly from.

The cost of labor for Qantas Engineering and Maintenance Staff in LAX is cheaper than in Australia. Engineering cost are expensive in Australia due to the specific skills and training they have. With the A380 grounded for a few years, it will cost a lot and take a lot of man hours to do the maintenance to get each plane back in the air.

Additionally, the LAX base based staff are also non-union, meaning that they are not bound to the same conditions as they are in Australia. The Australian based engineers have first rights to any engineering problems in Australia (in other words if a plane has issues in Alice Spring Qantas engineers would need to fly to Alice stay for the entire time the planes are on the ground which would be costly for a few years). This means in more practical terms; if they can outsource it to a cheaper company (like a local company in the Mojave Desert) it would be cheap than if the aircraft was in Australia.

Qantas' Heavy maintenance sites in Australia are in BNE, SYD & MEL. In each of the airports there is not a lot of space to leave planes sitting on the ground for years on end. The airline pays the airport for the time the plane sits on the ground and the space at each airport is limited. The cost to store the aircraft in the Mojave Desert would be a lot cheaper than at BNE, SYD & MEL in parking alone.

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation mean that we will be due for a wet period in Australia in the next year or two and could last for up to 3 years, as we head towards a La Niña period in Australia. In turn in the Americas there will be a period of less rain with dryer condition in the desert.

El Niño brings rain and cooler weather to the southern US, it brings heat and drought to Australia.

La Niña period brings rain and cooler weather to Australia and heat and drought to southern US.

The less moisture there is where the plane is stored the better.

Agreed with most posts already explaining some of the reasons why QF aren't storing planes in ASP.

Also, storage sites with limited spaces like ASP are on a first come, first serve basis. If I recall, the SQ and CX groups has booked up most spaces.

All of this is well and good but surely a key reason must also be that there is a very good chance that some, if not all, of these planes are never coming back. Putting them into hibernation in Victorville where they can be scrapped avoids the cost of starting them back up again and flying them to the US to be wrecked in a couple of years. As sad as it is, the economics of the A380 are unlikely to work for Qantas again unless the recovery from COVID-19 is very quick.