QANTAS A.380

[James Smith]

Thanks Nathan for posting the link to the USA Today article. A great find which confirms the notion that interesting snippets of aviation information can be found in all sorts of worldwide publications.

I have put two and two together and wonder if the aircraft operating the QANTAS A380 one off frequent flyers flight from MEL to NRT on 21 October, 2019 will then position to Pusan/Busan, South Korea (PUS) for repainting? It looks to be less than a two hour flight. Taking passengers on the outbound flight also seems to be the method of getting the first A380 to Dresden ex SYD via LHR on 26 May, 2019.

I presume that the return flight from PUS to AUS will be operated empty as the precise date that the repainting will be completed cannot be determined to allow forward bookings.

[James Smith]

QANTAS operated the one off SYD to LHR via SIN QF5, A380 flight with VH-OQE departing SYD late on Sunday night. See posts 8 & 13 for further information.

After a late afternoon arrival in LHR on Monday the A380 departed at 19:33 for the 1 hour 36 minute flight to DRS where it will be the first QANTAS A380 to have its cabin refurbishment done.

Does anyone know how long the refurbishment is scheduled to take for each aircraft? The 2017 QANTAS Press Release said that the refurbishment would take until the end of 2020, which if done without much of a break between aircraft would be upwards of a month and a half for each one. Possibly work will be suspended during the December to March peak when QANTAS will use an A380 on QF127/128 to HKG, although the schedule could be operated with 11 aircraft.

[James Smith]

A one-time extension of the seasonal QANTAS QF17/18 service from LAX to MCO on 19 January, 2020 & return on 24 January, 2020. The A380 must re-position back to LAX after the outbound flight and onto MCO to operate the return flight five days later.

Qantas in last week’s schedule update filed one-time Airbus A380 service to Orlando, scheduled in January 2020. The one-time A380 charter flight is scheduled as Sydney – Los Angeles – Orlando routing. Planned schedule as follows.

QF017 SYD1025 – 0515LAX0730 – 1455MCO 388 19JAN20
QF018 MCO1800 – 2020LAX2235 – 0835+2SYD 388 24JAN20

Source: Routes Online

[David C]

Originally Posted by James Smith

A one-time extension of the seasonal QANTAS QF17/18 service from LAX to MCO on 19 January, 2020 & return on 24 January, 2020. The A380 must re-position back to LAX after the outbound flight and onto MCO to operate the return flight five days later.



Source: Routes Online

Is this another one off charter for a well known Pentecostal group , the likes of which Qantas has operated before ? .

Dave C

[Ben W]

I see OQA went tech at LAX last night and QF94 was cancelled. Interesting that they in turn cancelled QF93 back to LAX this morning and opted to turn OQF back around and head back to SIN. Must mean the load factor was higher to SIN than LAX today?

[James Smith]

There may have been greater flexibility and more options to transfer passengers to SYD to fly on QF11, or to BRI to fly on QF15 as there was plenty of notice to arrange this after QF94 was cancelled.

In addition, any further passengers could be transferred today to SYD to fly on QF73 to SFO and transfer to LAX or the later QF49 from MEL to SFO and transfer to LAX.

[Jamie D]

OQG has gone to DRS today as QF6005, OQE has yet to depart, is she due back in service?

[James Smith]

It looks as though OQE will re-position to LHR to replace OQG and operate QF2 which leaves Wednesday evening at 21:05. As the flight from DRS is just over 1:30 it should be leaving in the next hour or so.

That means that the first cabin refurbishment has taken about 16 days to complete. It is a pity that the first A380 to have the refurbishment is not in the new QANTAS livery. OQG is though.

[Adam W]

According to this article https://www.ausbt.com.au/qantas-a380...tm_source=grid the first cabin refurbishment hasn't been done yet.

[James Smith]

Maybe the September date is when the cabin refurbishment will be officially introduced by QANTAS with a good number of the A380s having been converted. If introduced with only one A380 converted there will only be a one in twelve chance that you will fly on that particular aircraft.

Hopefully, we will have one of our Board members on board QF2 who can confirm. Otherwise I am sure there will be a Australian Business Traveller on board who will post on their site.