Qantas launches Boeing 787 flights for Melbourne-Los Angeles

As the article notes, Qantas expects to have two 787s in the hangar by the start of December.

Not much, the seatmap will likely show only what we already know, which is that it's 28 seats in four rows of 2-3-2... that said, if the seats show any type of angle or staggering, that'll be a hint as to what makes them so 'revolutionary'. :)

it would be pretty interesting if the premium economy suits are revealed to be angle lie-flat beds

On QF's upcoming 789, it would be financially suicidal if the new PY is a 'suite' style product and/or have angle lie-flat seat design.

I tend to disagree. A 2-3-2 angle flat would be a true incentive to pay more from economy on such long flights. However would be a true downgrade from a 1-2-1 lie flat suite.  

Launch will be Feb/March 17

To answer my own Question, Yes according to Qantas facebook team 

I'd be surprised if the QF facebook team is correct. QF has reduced and I believe is removing the extra B747 services from MEL to LAX except for seasonal peak services. Given VA's impending return to MEL-LAX, there may be too much capacity for QF to operate an additional (albeit 787) service on a year round basis without impacting yields. Any extra year round flights to the US from Melbourne will surely have to go to DFW.

The 787 has less capacity than the 747 albeit QANTAS is proposing more 787 services than there have been 747 ones. If the demand isn't there all year round then some 787 services could be seasonal I guess.

Yep, well as log0008 has reported, QF has definitely said this will be year round (so the facebook team isn't incorrect... my bad). But I would remain surprised if QF didn't use the chance to open up a MEL-DFW route.... even if it was 3 x MEL-LAX and 3-4 MEL-DFW.

I flew SYD to JNB on the old 747. It def needs to go. Maybe they can replace this route with 787 or kick on to Cape Town.

They are no-where near the point of getting parts shipped. Final assembly at Everett will only begin 2-3 months before the delivery date.

I wouldn't be surprised if this became MEL-DFW down the line

@log0008:

747ER's are not required to fly to SCL/JNB. JNB regularly see 23 year old QF's 747's.

Putting aside operational considerations, from a customer perspective if you flew MEL-DFW the LAX-JFK flight would not be needed anymore.  DFW is a great AA hub, and despite the problem Qantas and American have had recently they're still part of OneWorld. 

I'd be surprised if QF stopped flying their own metal to JFK.

I'm totally not surprised that QF's 789 debut plan has not much to do with providing MEL(nor any other AU mkt) customers with more destination choices.  Later yes(e.g. PER-LHR) but not initially for the 1st batch of 789.

The B744 freed up for this is going onto MEL-HKG daily, so they don't seem to be pushing to retire them. 

They may need a lot more 787s before they retire some 747s. It does depend what they want to do.

Jetstar (and their 787's) are based in Melb, so makes sense for Qantas to base 787's in Melb (at least initially) too. As for why LAX, there are probably a few reasons such as freeing up 747's for higher capacity Asia routes, maintaining best hard product on the USA routes and better fuel economy for these long hauls.

We didn't delve into why Qantas chose Melbourne or why it didn't choose Asia because that's not our role. We're not an aviation website dealing in industry analysis and backstory; we're a business travel website reporting on what's relevant to our core readership.

Absolutely! ...and don't change a thing David & Chris.

The AKL crews operate across a wide range of mainline intl services. I sat next to a FA on SYD-AKL and she was dead-heading home after doing a SYD-JNB trip.

Absolutely, AKL-based and London-based crew are fantastic! SYD-based old timers I find interesting...

I'm betting QF will deploy 789 on a CURRENT route fm BNE(Most likely BNE-LAX) well before QF will launch any new Trans-Pcf routes from BNE such as DFW, ORD or even SFO.....

BNE needs to be able to support decent yields first before they can introduce more services. QF aren't deliberately avoiding QLD, theres just clearly a better business case for somewhere else first.

Suspect you'll see a BNE-DFW in the not too distant future.

I think QF would already know the 789 is very capable of doing this given UA has been using the 789 on the same route for over a year in a tighter configuration that that planned by QF.

Noting that the current Q95/96 is a seasonal 747. If you check timetable for Feb for example it doesn't exist. So replacing this with a 787 is an additional service. Can't see it helping QF reduce 747's in the short term.

95/96 isn't seasonal.
It was added at 3 weekly in Jan 2015 when all the transpac flights were tweeked (adding a 4th SCL flight, retiming 11, changing 107/108 to 17/18 and forming the JFK tag from BNE).
It was reduced to 2 weekly at the start of this year to allow extra 73/74 flights.
It is being withdrawn at the end of January to allow QF29/30 to become daily 747.

@hutch:

While QF hasn't posted the flight times yet, using the 787 from this flight for JFK is unlikely as this will most likely be an afternoon flight, not the morning flight needed for the JFK tag.

Interesting, I didn't know. I thought that flight was better suited to the A330 (and hence the 789) that used to fly it and they only upgraded to the 744 because the a330 stopped making the trek over.

Hi Johnny, not sure what your source is to that claim, but the information we've received directly from Qantas doesn't suggest that Melbourne-LAX Boeing 787 flights will be replaced by Perth-London: they'll just use the same aircraft type, of which Qantas has multiple on order.

Hey Chris,So they will have more than 2 by March 2018?

There are 12 787-9s being built at Everett (and 11 more at Charleston) with unknown airlines assigned, due to be delivered after the 2nd QF aircraft in Dec and March.

QF could be getting some of those, or none of those. Until there is an update as to which line numbers are going to which airline, all we know is that QF will have 4 aircraft by June 2018.

@Himeno:

It's one of the slots that was listed as "unknown" airline when I checked it.

Possibly the 4th will be LN 666, 664 or 662 due late Jan-Mid Feb.

Sorry, last sentence meant to say 'well just a wish I guess'