Qantas pilots back the Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Huh? How do you bring something back you never had?

Sorry I meant the 787 orders

2 years ? That's public service efficiency. Wait Qantas used to be & still thinks like the public service.

Why doesn't QF simply pull some of JQ's 787's ?

JQ have the 787-8, Qantas want the 787-9

& that can easily be switched

They're not ordering pizzas. It takes a while to make planes and there is a waiting list.

You know that IF they do get the B787, they will follow the herd and go 9 abreast.

Its without a doubt the worse design feature of the B787

surely could have 8 abreast at front of economy & 9 abreast at back.

That 9'abreast seating on the B787 is horrid... Wish they would go for the A350-900.

Would also make sense for pilots who could be common rated with the A330 and A380.

Yes there are efficiencies on being 'all Airbus' but there's significant manufacturer risk in having everything from the same OEM. They also want to position themselves for 777X which seems like it could be the replacement for a380/747

Pretty much no airline operating more than one model actually goes all-Airbus or all-Boeing. 

I can only assume that any savings you gain in the maintenance shed are quickly lost when you sit down at the negotiating table in Seattle or Toulouse with a guy who knows you're not gonna buy from the competition.

AA used to be all Boeing, until they made such a large narrow body order that nether Boeing or Airbus could cover all of it in the time AA required.

I've flown on the JL 787s a few times. The only thing I didn't like about it was the window tint system.

Consider the case of the Japanese airlines who placed 8-breast seating. (The example I'm using is JAL's Boeing 787-9). The layout consists of 44 business seats (2-2-2), 35 premium economy seats (2-3-2) and 118 economy seats (2-4-2). It's quite obvious that the overwhelming majority of revenue will be from business, with a significant input from premium economy. If QF is to adop 2-4-2 economy seating then the jets will have to be deployed to destinations with a high yield of business travellers. Leisure destinations will not work as the majority are tourists so they won't have the budget to afford business class (the majority anyways).  Assuming QF will install their new A330 business class seats in 1-2-1 arrangement, you can guess how expensive business class is going to be. Therefore for flights with not a lot of demand for business, they will need contribution from economy which is 9 abreast seating.

Does size matter?

I agree there. Also note: if Qantas go 9-abreast in economy for Dreamliners, then they may risk having some of their economy demand cannibalized by Jetstar. 8-abreast Dreamliner Economy would be a fantastic way to differentiate the product, retain customer loyalty, provide consistent comfort across the fleet (since an A380 can be fitted with roughly the same width economy seats at 10-across), lower weight (and thus fuel burn), lower labour costs, AND provide an objective comfort advantage relative to all of the Middle East 3 carriers including Emirates.

What was the name of the documentary, out of interest?

Broken Dreams, remembering  from the top of my head.

The Al Jazeera one, right?

Al Jazerra reporter asked slanted questions on camera to record Boeing representative response. They set up a trap. The article was designed to be sensational to get attention at the expense of the 787 program. It was not a balanced report. 

Al Jazerra is getting started in USA and proceeded to burn a bridge with one of the largest corporations. All they had to do was proper reporting and it would have been fine.

It's not the first time Al Jazerra have done an anti-Boeing expose`, they did a doco on 'dodgy' 737 manufacturing a few years ago.

So it now seems they are just looking to take another cheap shot at one of America's industrial sucess stories.

I would think QF would trial shorter runs, despite JQ already operating 787s.

QF's service pattern is different to JQ so it would be good for cabin crew to test meal services and ground crew to test turnarounds.

NZ spent a month or so flying sydney-auckland with their 789 before putting it on the Perth route too.

Qantas flew their a380 to AKL and PER when it was first delivered, they'll probably do the same with the 787-9, A few 787s on Domestic would probably help win some customers from Virgin too.

Just adding to the list BA had to a380 on LHR-FRA and 787 on LHR-ARN for their trial runs.

They have left it too late, other airlnes with updated fleet are leaving them in the clouds or is it dust:). Then the flight offers of late with AirNZ, Qatar and others are a "dream" come true.

That's not going to work. You need to consider the size of the new business class and the premium economy class. Assuming they do add premium economy and Using the JAL B787-9 as an example,  Business class extends 7 rows (so it will be 28 business seats), premium economy extends 5 rows (35 seats) and the total economy section for 8 breast seating is 116 seats (spanning from rows 45-59). Or by going with your plan of 21 premium seats that will give two extra economy rows which will then give a total of 132 economy seats. I read somewhere that QF was planning 275 seats for the B787. 2-4-2 seating will only work if the destinations will guarantee high load factors for business class, otherwise it will incur losses. It may be possible that QF will split the fleet into different class layouts, but it is not likely that economy seating will be 2-4-2. 

I was thinking 2-3-2 for Premium Economy and obviously 1-2-1 for Business. But I see your point. 

I think you're making a slight error with your calculations here. Specifically, you're presuming that Qantas' Business cabin will take up the same amount of space on a 787-9 that JAL's business cabin will. However, this is an error; JAL use BE Aerospace Apex suites whereas Qantas is using Thompson Vantage XL. If we assume that there will be 28 Business seats, then that will only fill the front part of the plane, whereas JAL's business class stretches back to almost half of the plane! Ergo, on the Qantas Dreamliner, both Business and Premium Economy can fit into the same space which is, on JAL's Dreamliner, occupied exclusively by Business class. Ergo, even at a 2-4-2 layout in economy, the Qantas plane will have a greatly-increased Economy capacity relative to JAL (I'd say a minimum of 160). In addition, JAL gives 33" pitch to Economy Class and Qantas will probably give 31" (or 32" at most), which will also increase capacity. Finally, I'd expect Qantas to probably keep a Premium Economy cabin to about 28 seats (four rows of seven-across), rather than JAL's 35, which will further boost the capacity of Economy. So 28 Business + 28 Premium Economy + maybe about 176 Economy seats at an eight across layout (twenty two rows in total.. and this is a conservative estimate I think given how JAL's 787-9 has 15 rows) would make 232 seats.

Basically, QF's Dreamliners will easily be able to have more Economy seating than JAL's even at eight-across. They don't need 9-abreast to 'make it work.'

@ Studiode: Please have a look at the seat map of JAL B789
https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Japan_Airlines/Japan_Airlines_787-900.php

You can see that 7 rows of business class seats takes up a lot of space on the aircraft. And since Thompson Vantage XL takes up extra space for the lie-flat  seat then it will most likely expand even further than shown. Of course if they do introduce premium economy then economy class is going to be reduced even further. I'm not saying that QF will definitely use nine abreast seating (I'm not on the planning board) but using 8 abreast seating on routes with high cattle class demand and low business demand doesn't make economic sense. Most of the airlines utilising B787s use 9 abreast seating for this very reason seeing as B787 is primarily used to skip hub feeds and go straight to secondary cities or previously uneconomic routes. 

As far as lower weight and less fuel burn goes, if B787s are deployed on ultra-long haul routes they will still need heck a lot of fuel. If you deploy eight across seating then economy prices are going to be expensive since fuel price/passenger/km will increase.

Note that since acquiring B787s Japan Airlines and ANA for that matter haven't aggressively expanded into new markets like the B787 was promised it can do. Only airlines like LAN and Air India have been recently flying to new markets and their seating is 9 abreast.

I have looked at that precise seat map. Indeed, I've studied it.

Like I said, those "seven rows of business class" are BE Aerospace Apex suites, which (as you've correctly pointed out) take up half the plane.

On the other hand, Qantas is using the Thompson Vantage XL, which is a denser product. The front cabin can fit 27/28 Vantage XL suites, whereas it can only fit 24 Apex suites (see https://www.thompsonaero.com/lopas and go down).

If we assume Qantas will only want 28 Business seats, that will take up only the first cabin.

As for Premium Economy, I can see a minimum of 21 seats (and a maximum of 28), 7-across, but they'll be pitched at 38" (which is six inches less than JAL's Premium Economy cabin). So there will be fewer rows of PE, pitched more closely together. Not only will the Business Class space be significnatly less, but the Premium Economy space will be so too.

This leaves the entire rear compartment AND the rear two thirds of the central compartment free for Economy seating.

JAL fit 116 seats of Economy into the rear compartment, but that is at a 33" pitch. Qantas will use either a 32" or 31" pitch, meaning they'll be able to fit in AT LEAST 120 Economy seats at eight-abreast into that rear compartment alone. 11 rows of equally-pitched seating will EASILY fit into the rear two-thirds of the middle compartment.. possibly more.

The overall result will be that with eight-across seating pitched at 32 or 31 inches, Qantas can give an Economy seat width of 18.5" inches AND have a minimum of 208 Economy seats on a 787-9, with 28 Business seats and 21 to 28 Premium Economy seats. Therefore, I can see a minimum capacity of 257 even with 8-across Dreamliner seating.

This is a perfectly economically feasible configuration, based on extrapolation from 787-9 seat maps and Thompson's own LOPA. There is more than enough space on a 787-9 to fit in at least 200 Economy seats at 8-across, with a Vantage XL-based Business Class cabin and a Premium Economy cabin of 7-across with 3 or 4 rows pitched at 38".

The LOPA on Thompson's website shows 27 can fit into the front of a Dreamliner although they may try and make it 28, so I think 28 is a reasonable estimate.

If you're talking about fleet type commonality, then it would make more sense to replace B744 with A350-1000 instead of the Boeing 777 since it will reduce costs for flight crew training (A380 and A350 share common cockpit type rating) and all Boeing 777 slots are taken for the rest of this decade, whilst QF will need to replace B744 in the short-medium term.

If QF were to look at 777s again, and can't get any from other sources in the short term, then they shouldn't be looking at 77Ws. They need to look at the 778/779. By the time 777 slots open up, the new engine 777-8 and 777-9 will be coming out.

The 777 slots are only full for 2015 and 2016.  From 2017 until 2020 (when commercial production of the 777-X starts) things are wide open.  There's so much spare capacity that Boeing will likely have to cut their production rate so the lines don't run out of work.  That means 777-300ERs are now available at fire sale prices, hence why United converted 10 of their 787 orders to the 777.  If Qantas did want to pick up some 777s, this would be the time to do it.

Good one! I believe that Qantas is trying to resist the next-gen jets with just the 747ERs and A380. Clearly Qantas should open its eyes and look out for the popular airplanes like the 77W, A350 XWBs and 787s. At least that's what I think.

I agree.  There seems to be some tunnel thinking that the 787 is still the right choice for QF.  Given the negativity toward 9 abreast seating on the 787, with almost all users going that way, I think the A350 is a better solution for a full service carrier.  It would depend on how hungry Airbus it for A350 orders.

Agreeing with TRB's post.  Not so much that QF resisting newer aircraft.   The 747ERs are still a bit young to pitch out and are needed by QF until the ETOPS issues over the Southern oceans are resolved.

Do you have a source about Qantas pushing for 9-abreast? I'd like to see that.

In addition, Qantas giving extra legroom to compensate? Airbus' sleep studies showed that width is a fair bit more important than pitch. If they went 9-abreast they wouldn't be able to compensate with a bit of extra legroom.

I think the A380 works very well for them on the high capacity high yield routes and I wouldn't be surprised to see some more of the newer HGW A380 orders, the A350-1000 could be in the mix there especially with it's long range and pilot commonality. Maybe they will want to steer clear of a new Boeing aircraft (777X) that isn't due out until 2020 at the earliest especially having had their finger burnt with the 787.

Yeah I guess with the A350 it depends on how many types of fleet AJ wants on the international network. If the 787-9 could replace the 747 even though it's certainly does not have to capacity (but then obviously then they can do double daily 787-9s perhaps) it allows for the fleet to much more simple. 

Hear, Hear, Hear - especially if any of them flew from Perth..

A daily Perth-Dubai-Frankfurt in a 787-9.

I reckon it would be a winner for QF. Pick up and drop off pax in Dubai in both directions to connect with QF flights to London and eastern states.

We just flew EK Perth-Dubai-Dusseldorf which turned out to be a good place to arrive, giving us good access to most parts of western Europe, and is also a OW hub.

Or a PER-DXB-CDG flight. That way we don't have to switch flight nos!!!

I hope so If this brings back Adelaide to Singapore with connections onto the UK and Europe without stepping foot in the Middle East and much better schedules I am all for it.Qantas had a great partnership for Paris and London with Air France and BA but threw it all away for Emirates.

I hope so too, but wouldn't hold my breath...

I presume QF will take the first five options quickly, so as to replace the quadjets and trip operating costs more dramatically. The A330s are being refreshed with new product so we can expect they'll remain doing most of the Asian routes for now.

I'd suggest SYD-SFO and SYD-DFW will probably be the first ones to be replaced (I can't see DFW as being a hugely popular route, but the A380 is the only craft QF have that can reach it. The Dreamliner will change that). BNE-LAX-JFK as well (they don't have local pickup rights in LAX, they need to depend on their flights from Australia to feed the onward leg so the 747 they use is probably too much capacity for them to fill given only a small fraction of the passengers would be going direct to New York City) . Perhaps QF will start a BNE-DXB service of their own? I also think PER-DXB would be on the cards.

I generally agree but I do not see them decreasing capacity on DFW as it is a growing market. The issue is the A380 is load restricted coming back at some times of the year.They may go double daily but then due to timing/turnaround issues they both would have to go more or less together. So they may do Melb DFW as well as SYD-DFW both with 789s but would be a pity as the A380 is great for that trip with better economy comfort for the 15+ hours.  I suspect the first use will be ex Brisbane (LA-NYC and DXB) and the second SYD-LAX flight.  Vancouver will come in there soon as well.

"I generally agree but I do not see them decreasing capacity on DFW as it is a growing market. The issue is the A380 is load restricted coming back at some times of the year."

Ahhh, thanks for clearing that up. My mistake. If DFW is as growing and profitable as you say, clearly QF won't be replacing the A380 on that route. Do you know why the A380 is load-restricted at times of the year on that route? The craft surely has the range for it...

As a Brisbane resident I'm biased but I do agree/hope that the BNE-LAX-NYC goes Dreamliner. And Qantas starting a Dreamliner service from Brisbane to Dubai would be great too. I can also see them doing Perth-Dubai, perhaps then adding a tailing on fight to a central-or-southern-European destination.

I agree the A380 is more comfortable in economy if the DL goes 9-abreast with standard economy seats. However if Qantas use the Thompson CozySuite on the dreamliner they'd easily be able to hit their capacity target AND provide a substantial Premium Economy cabin without sacrificing comfort in Economy class. But whether Qantas will use the CozySuite is a question we don't know the answer to .

The A380 can be load restricted on the DFW-SYD sector due to prevailing winds. These are clear from the scheduled block times SYD-DFW of 15h 35m and DFW-SYD of 16h 55m.

Ahhh... but QF have stated the 787-9 can do Sydney-Dallas as well (even though it has 300km less range than the A380). Would this imply that a Dreamliner would need to be load-restricted to get back to Sydney from Dallas? Or are there some other factors I'm not aware of?

Interesting as I thought the 789 had a little more range (500km or some such). The A380 has to drop fifty passngers at some times of the year.  This will mean the 789 will have to drop 20-30, but maybe the economics are slightly better, but economies of scale would kick in on a double daily 789 at much the same time as the A380.

Has any airline, particularly leading airline, decided to use the Thomson CozySuite?

I don't believe so, from what I know Delta was going to use it for their 764ER and B777 in 2010 but then shelved it. Qantas could really make their mark in 787 comfort. And they could call themselves the real 787 premium airline compared to the rest of the airlines with conventional 3-3-3 confit with 17inch seats not 19-20" seat cozy suit provides in Economy plus other benefits as well

and still get the benefits of a 3-3-3 config but with comfort of an 8 abreast configuration. It's a win win situation as far as I can see

QF doesn't have to rely on pax from/to Australia for the LAX-JFK tag flight. DOT rules limit that flight to continuing international pax. There is nothing in the rules that says QF can't transport,  for example, LHR-LAX-JFK-LHR pax on the LAX-JFK leg.

QF itself limits it more then DOT allows because it makes it easier/cheaper for them to prove they are following the rules when others (like UA) complain about it.

"QF doesn't have to rely on pax from/to Australia for the LAX-JFK tag flight. DOT rules limit that flight to continuing international pax. There is nothing in the rules that says QF can't transport,  for example, LHR-LAX-JFK-LHR pax on the LAX-JFK leg."

Ahhh... so in theory, QF could easily do an LAX-JFK flight with enough capacity to take up all customers at TBIT in transit to JFK? Wow... That makes me wonder why they don't use an A380 on that route... since Cathay and JAL also provide feed as well as other non-allied airlines being able to as well... I wonder what demand they have...

Why would Cathay put passengers onto LAX-JFK? They have 4 flights to NYC.

Dallas is a monopoly route with good yields. 

Under the DOT rules, CX could, in theory, book a pax as HKG-LAX (stop) LAX-JFK (stop) JFK-HKG with LAX-JFK on QF.

In practice, if such a pax ended up booked on the QF flight, QF will shift them to an AA flight as it would make it much harder for QF to prove they are following the rules should DOT ask about it.

Ahhh, thanks for the explanation about this. I appreciate it.

SYD-LAX (Bring the 3 x Weekly flight to Daily)

BNE-LAX-JFK

BNE-LAX (Could go 10 x weekly)

SYD-SFO

SYD-PEK/ICN

BNE-DXB (To meet the EK Bank at 0000-0200)

DXB-BER?

When QF gets ETOPS, don' t be surprised to see the 787s on

SYD-JNB/SCL or even PER-JNB