The A380 will be operating QF11/12 on the SYD-LAX-SYD route three times per week from 11/1/22.

Source: https://www.executivetraveller.com/n...ey-los-angeles

VH-OQB has just performed a 54 minute flight from SYD-SYD heading west over the blue mountains towards Orange, then south and back towards Yass as QF6016. There are two further flights scheduled for today, obviously for A380 crew training prior to it commencing service on 11/1/22.

VH-OQD did a test flight out of Lax yesterday for a few hours out over Nevada and back, could this one be coming home next or will it go to Europe first as well?

OQD has been renovated and given flights start in four days I cannot see it heading anywhere but to yssy

Due into SYD at 0600L on Sunday.

Now Monday.

OQD is on its way to SYD as QF6023.

OQB has restarted it's training/refresher flights this morning

The current flight by OQB is the 25th training flight since QANTAS commenced them on 5/1/22. They have operated everyday since then with a maximum of six flights on two days.

It will be interesting to see if the training flights continue after tomorrow now that OQD is back in SYD.

Watch: Second Qantas A380 returns to Australia from storage

A second Qantas Airbus A380 has returned to Australia after spending 674 days in storage at LAX, ahead of a planned return to service.
VH-OQD took off from LAX just before 9pm local time on Saturday, 8 January, taking to the skies for a total of 14 hours and 18 minutes, en-route to Sydney Kingsford Smith International Airport, where it landed at 6:11am on Monday, 10 January.

It marks the first time that OQD has touched down on Australian soil since it performed its last passenger flight to London, and was ferried from Heathrow to Abu Dhabi for maintenance on 7 March 2020.

Twitter user @speedbird020 captured this livefeed of VH-OQD taking off from LAX, on its way home to Australia.

https://australianaviation.com.au/20...-from-storage/

Flagship Qantas A380 returns to passenger service

Update: 10pm
And we’re off!
The first Qantas Airbus A380 has officially returned to passenger service after a nearly two-year hiatus, with VH-OQB taking to the skies as QF11 from Sydney – LAX.
VH-OQB took off from Sydney Kingsford Smith International Airport right on schedule, at 9:44pm on Tuesday, and is currently en-route to Los Angeles, for an expected flight time of just under 14 hours.

It marks not only the first passenger service onboard Qantas’ flagship Airbus A380 aircraft since the early days of the pandemic, but also OQB’s first passenger flight in 659 days.

The last time VH-OQB carried passengers was on 23 March 2020.

https://australianaviation.com.au/20...rcial-service/

OQB arrived in LAX 3 minutes ago.

with broken IFE lol

Oh dear, that would have made it a long flight for some. Not that I ever watch it.

Just curious, what was the pax load?

The return flight had maybe two J and one PE seat spare, including F being sold as J, so pretty full.

Good to hear it was full.

Oqk is currently about to depart Lax as qf6023 to Abu Dhabi I'm guessing for heavy maintenance after her spell in hibernation. Wondering if the crew will return oqc back to Sydney in a few days?

I think it would be heavy maintenance as the cabins have already been refurbished prior to being stored in Victorville

QANTAS Link is to fly to Broken Hill twice a week from 8 April, 2022 on Monday and Friday with Dash 8-Q300 aircraft. The launch took place this morning.

Link to the QANTAS media release:

Seems the Qantas CEO is not up to date with the London 787-9 services, as he claimed a double daily service.

While the Sydney-London route (QF1/QF2) is daily, the Melbourne-London route (QF9/QF10) has been every second day since 4th January ?!

Qantas extends Kangaroo route to London via Darwin/

From what I can see, QF9/10 returns to double daily from 27 Feb.

VH-ZNK is inaugurating the four times a week 787-9 QF7/QF8 service from Sydney to Dallas Fort Worth this afternoon.

Might see the odd Nomadic crew catching a ride in the next week

Qantaslink start E190 ops BNE-CBR,NTL and CNS from next month.

I counted 26 flights a week total to all those ports.

CNS 4 flights a week...NTL 6 flights a week and 16 a week to CBR.:)

BNE-ADL and BNE-TSV will also get the E190s in the changeover.

A388 VH-OQK inbound to SYD from AUH. Due just before 1600L

EDIT: its going to MEL, ETA 1500L

OQK as QF 6014 has diverted to MEL and OQD is currently conducting a one hour 25 minute test flight to the east of SYD as QF6011.

OQD has conducted four short flights today which look to be technical crew training flights. This would be in readiness for QF11/12 going daily with the A380 from the end of March.

Meanwhile it appears QF11/QF12 has gone back to daily from March 1st, with just two A380 services now on Monday & Saturday and 789s on the other 5 days, replacing the interim three A380s and one 789 per week.

OQH has just positioned VCV LAX.

Once QF11/QF12 becomes an all A380 operation, the 5 surplus 789s initially appear to be distributed to cover 3 extra MEL-LAX QF93/QF94 rotations to make that a daily service, and one each to SYD-DFW QF7/QF8 and SYD-JNB QF63/QF64, taking those services up to 4 per week.

Looking at the location of all QANTAS A380s, there are only 7 left stored at VCV, 1 stored at AUH, 1 just positioning to LAX, with the remaining 3 in SYD (1 just arrived and the other 2 back in service).

Future expansion of A380 services will be daily QF11/12 SYD-LAX-SYD from 27/3/22 and daily QF1/2 SYD-LHR-SYD via SIN from 19/6/22, when an additional 3 A380s will be required to return to service. The LHR services will be operated by refurbished models as stated by Alan Joyce. No further A380 services have as yet been announced.

OQK re-entered service on the 5th operating QF11.

A380 OQK has conducted two training flights to the east of SYD today and is about to depart on a third.

For the second time in less than a week, the 787-9 operated QF9 sector from Darwin to LHR was initially delayed by ~12 hours then cancelled, leading to the cancellation of the return QF10 sectors, plus today's QF9 Melbourne - Darwin sector. Covid seemingly still creating issues ?

Possibly not in this latest occurrence, as 787-9 ZNI positioned to Darwin as QF6001 this afternoon, before operating the overnight Darwin - London Heathrow sector of QF9 - leaving ZNB sitting in Darwin.

Vhoqh will be ferrying to Abu Dhabi as qf6023 leaving Lax at 10am local.
Already had the cabin upgrade so maybe maintaince and a repaint into silver roo.?

Yes hopefully getting a repaint into the new livery!

ZNB was struck by lightning enroute MEL-DRW on Sunday so that'll have something to do with it.

Could also explain ZNBs unusual flight path (as QF10) on its eventual return to Melbourne this afternoon - half way to Perth before turning east, for a flight time of 5 hours versus usual direct route of ~3 hrs 40 min.
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/a...h-znb#2b249709