Qantas to fly Boeing 787 non-stop Perth-London from March 2018

I agree that it will not be fun, but I think that I would still rather do 17.5 hours with an extra inch of pitch than 14.5 hours to Dubai with an inch less, and avoid the transfer hassle and hopefully more time in the lounge and the improved "atmospherics" of the Dreamliner. 

Agree. I've normally taken the EK BNE-SIN-DXB-LHR flight to break up the 14 hour direct Dubai flight. I can't see myself voting for a 17hr flight in economy. The only winners are those up front.

There's a lot of risk. Pick a poor seat or be seated next to the wrong person (body odors, screaming child, obese person etc) on a full flight, and this could easily be pure hell. 17.5 hours!

I don't get the fuss either; long flights are a norm these days. Singapore airlines flew the world longest ever from Newark to Singapore 18 hours no sweat. They and United are flying the Singapore to San Francisco now and United flies the 787; the world longest flight on a 787 at the moment.

Yes, but SIN-EWR was on a special A340 which had no economy class.

SIN-JFK was all business though. 

Qantas already do Sydney-Dallas and Melbourne-LAX (both 16 hours), with more economy PAX. I can't see what the fuss is. Surely we're not that precious.

The last time I few in economy for 14 hours (SYD-LAX) I got extremely fidgety by hour 10 or 11, failed to sleep, and by hour 12 felt like I was going nuts and promised never, ever again! And that was on an aisle seat ... sitting in a middle seat would be like hell.

Many are. First world problems. 

It is that in Economy Qantas has moved away from the 2-4-2 configuration Boeing had in mind when they coined the term Dreamliner, ie. an aircraft promising more space, and with 3-3-3 has seats up to an inch narrower than on those flights, with more passengers per cabin crew members. It sounds like Qantas's PR, which heavily played up the Dreamliner tag conveniently forgetting it no longer applies to the LCC configuration, worked. Don't worry though, SYD-DFW will switch over to the Nightmareliner.

What annoying immigration process in Dubai? Doesn't faze me. 

e passports. plug that into scanner and walk through. 

Exactly. It really isn't that difficult.

I don't think it will be at all. It's a 787; you'll be fine.

As someone who has transited Europe to Australia via Dubai 30 times in the past 3 years, I can confirm there is NO immigration process in Dubai for transfer passengers - only a baggage security check, same as an international transfer in Melbourne or Sydney. It is one of the easiest and smoothest airports in the world to transfer in. Since you refer to "imagining" the "annoying immigration process", it's clear you've never flown it and so this comment above isn't fair.

The Perth lounge is good but remember the FIFO hordes tend to change the dynamics of the lounge

I was wondering about that as well.
The way Qantas has configured their 787s means that half of the plane is business/premium economy seating which means it isn't as dense with passengers (and their luggage) as plane that may have more economy seating, such as Jetstar.
I wonder if the lower density still means full planes that can make the distance or will they, as you say, have to restrict cargo/passengers.
And long term, will they put a A350/777x on the route?
Time will tell!

They would have to restrict seats. It's the only way they would be able to get the range increased enough to make the flight.

The Boeing quoted 787-9 range is 14,140 km.
JAL quotes their 195 seat (44J 35W 116Y) 787-9 range at 14,400km.
I don't see how they can get the needed range for PER-LHR (14,499 km) with more seats then the JAL config.

+1. Having to fly Sydney-Singapore/Bangkok-Heathrow in order to backtrack to somewhere else in Europe was a big problem with the original Qantas-BA arrangement.

Who in their right mind will LOVE go via DXB? Not me this is for sure. And besides EK is famous for incredibly "convenient" arrival/departure times like 2am. I am not interested, thanks and rather go via SIN/BKK/HKG.

I've heard Adelaide and Canberra passengers are part of the target market for this flight.  They can do a 1-stop via Perth instead of a 2-stop via Sydney/Melbourne and then Dubai.

I can't see Qantas axing QF9/10 as one of the major benefits for Emirates in the partnership is the A380 into LHR and the amount of seats it has. As Emirates can not fly anyone more seats into LHR without paying some serious money for additional landing slots. I believe Qantas has leased to BA the slots that they would use for the Perth flight

I'm no expert but I assume that QF9/10 will have to be axed if Qantas have given up their slots at LHR. If that's the case they will have to give up one of their services in to LHR. Perhaps your idea of QF9/10 serving FRA CDG or perhaps even AMS is a possibility connecting in DXB. It would be good to see Qantas serving more destinations in Europe after Joyce axed so many. 

Seeing as this 787-9 is tipped to originate in Melbourne, then it's highly likely the A380 MEL-DXB_LHR service will be axed.

I would go  this route from MEL but if going elsewhere in EU I'd prefer the QF A380 via DXB connecting with EK. 

Learmonth    

They've already announced the economy seats and they're nothing like Jetstar

same width as jetstar with more pitch...

Just another reason not to fly Qantas from the Australian East Coast to Europe in economy. If it it had been a Dreamliner, i.e. 2-4-2 then yes but as 3-3-3 Nightmareliner then nope.

Well not everyone needs to go to London, while EK can transit pax through DXB to all over Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Let me tell you that I upset far more than BA!

Regular service just means that it will be always operating no matter the seasons, etc. A flight can be daily, five weekly or even thrice weekly and still considered regular as long as the flight is not a charter flight.

Aware of that so why not terminate the QF flight in dxb.

Because that defeats the whole point of the non-stop to LHR???

Has nothing to do with that point, if EK is jumping in to fill the gap QF are leaving with a DXB flight then why wouldnt QF fly at least to DXB. That's the question. Nothing to do with flying non-stop to LHR.

QF owns 4 slot pairs at LHR. 2x morning arrival, 2x lunch time arrival, 2x lunch time departure, 2x evening departure. They are currently using 1 of each with the rest leased to BA.

Do you have a link? I thought it was a $14 million contribution.

https://twitter.com/ColinBarnett/status/807817473374363648

As I've seen mentioned elsewhere 14 flights a week likely means 7 in each direction i.e. a daily service. 14 flights a week sounds a lot better than a daily service, but it's probably the same thing. It would be good to have some clarification either way from QANTAS on this.

I would think so. Either they would sell the PE seat with a new domestic PE bucket or perhaps offer it as an upgrade or op-up for higher status travellers as availability permits. They wouldn't want to jeopardise PE sales for the international sector.

I hope they start MEL-SFO flights. It will be interesting to hear what routes the 787 will fly on in due course.

Makes sense given Jetstars 787 are based in MEL. I think MEL-LAX will be the first international QAN 787 route (until they switch to PER-LHR when they get enough birds).

The 787s will add new routes and also likely replace some 747s eventually. QANTAS will decide on the routes and timing that suits them.

...err, that's the point of QF's hubbing to DXB - you can fly from DXB to virtually any major city in Europe.

Maybe they could create a partnership with oneworld partner Finnair.
Run PER-HEL (13,085 km), much more doable then the 14,500km to LHR, with connections into EU on AY.

The 'issue' with QF going to EU via Asia is there are limits to how many through flights they are allowed depending on the port with 5th freedom in the air service agreements. eg, they can only have 14 flights/week to Europe from HKG.

So fly CX then. Asking QF to compete against CX at their home hub is nonsensical.

DRW-LHR would be a better idea then PER-LHR. A 13,872 km flight would be much more doable then a 14,499 km flight. They wouldn't have to block off as many seats.

You wouldn't need to block of the seat as the 3 people that live in DRW wont be on the plane

A quick look at QF8 times DFW to SYD shows that flights regularly stretch out beyond 17h. It was popular enough to upgrade from 747 to A380, so there must be plenty of people who are willing to do it 

As the flights have been shifted away from the international terminal to the Qantas domestic side of the runway you shouldn't experience the woeful under-staffing of Immigration that most pax experience in Perth. 

This flight won't be flying into the international terminal. Your flight will effectively have its own dedicated immigration team on the QF domestic side.