OQJ did a rotation through Gatwick for the first time, on charter to what I suspect is the usual customer

EBN is due to re-enter service today after spending a couple of weeks in BNE reportedly being fitted with Viasat WiFi

11 years after leaving the fleet, former VH-ZXC is still going strong for Eastern, although her age is showing!

https://www.instagram.com/p/C5-KcUFu..._web_copy_link

Mark, looks like a little Hydraulic leak from the rudder has taken the paint away. Skydrol does that to aircraft paint.

From QANTAS Flight Status, A380 VH-OQH is scheduled to depart AUH at 16:10 local today and arrive is SYD at 6:10 Saturday morning.

Another A380 is scheduled to depart SYD at 11:10 on Saturday morning for AUH, presumably also for maintenance. Early contenders would be OQB, OQD, OQI & OQJ to be reduced by two depending on which A380's depart as QF1 & QF11 later today.

OQB it is.
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/vh-oqb

QANTAS A380 VH-OQB is scheduled to depart SYD at 11:10 today for maintenance in AUH. It will be delayed a little as the inbound aircraft didn't arrive until 9:24 as QF12.

OQH arrived from AUH this morning and will operate either QF1 or QF11 later today.

So QF still has only 6 in service at the moment.

Yes Dennis. When OQB arrives today there will be OQB, OQC (since 20/6/21), OQK (24/2/24) & OQL (13/3/24) in AUH. They are getting through the QANTAS A380 maintenance program now that Etihad's own A380s have been returned to service, freeing up that facility. OQK shouldn't be too much longer in AUH and OQL is being refurbished and should return to service in late May to mid June.

QANTAS only need six A380's for their current timetable - 3 for SYD-LHR-SYD, 2 for SYD-LAX-SYD and 1 for LAX-MEL-LAX but this has no replacement capability built in with only the six aircraft. The next build up in A380 capacity was to be SYD-JNB-SYD (4-6pw) and more MEL-LAX-MEL (6pw) in July but this has been put back to late September 2024. Hopefully, all the major maintenance work, refurbishment (OQC?) and any gear changes will be done by then and the ten A380s will all be operational. Not sure though if there are any further wing spar checks required in the next year or so.