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Qantas takes delivery of B787
October 20th 2017
Qantas Airways on Monday took delivery of its first B787-9. Read More » VH-ZNA was the first of eight on-order -9s the Australian carrier will receive in the next 12 months.
The second Dreamliner bound for Qantas is undergoing final assembly and is on schedule for delivery to the airline in early December. The third will follow in January and the fourth in March, said Gareth Evans, CEO of Qantas International who will move over to CEO of low-cost subsidiary, Jetstar, in November.
Qantas will use the first four aircraft to launch its much-anticipated Perth-London nonstop flights from March 25, in addition to replacing B747s on the Melbourne-Los Angeles route.
Qantas might be adding routes to Europe from its new “Western hub” in Perth or it could open services from its traditional “Eastern hubs” to North America.
“The range capability that this technology delivers will enable us to hit new destinations, potentially things like Brisbane-Chicago,” Evans said.
“This new technology, and the technology potentially to come, will revolutionise our international network. These are aircraft that are made for Qantas. We can do unique things with these aircraft that other airlines, because of their geography, perhaps will not, or don’t need to,” he said.
Qantas has 45 production slot options for additional B787s. While it may not exercise all of them, the airline will almost certainly convert some into firm orders, although not necessarily for the -9.
“This is a flexible order stream, so with appropriate notice we could move from a -9 to a -8 to a -10 and so it’s a great level of flexibility that we have to manage our fleet plan together with Boeing,” said Evans.
“Because of their size, these aircraft are going to be great for our Asian network as well – point-to-point travel into Asia. With 236-seats there’s great opportunity and potential going forward for us to use this wonderfully flexible and efficient aircraft right around our network.”
Separately, Qantas has said it was evaluating Boeing’s B777-8X against Airbus’ A350-900ULR for its plans to fly nonstop between Australia and New York.
Speaking in Seattle, Qantas group CEO, Alan Joyce, said the oneworld carrier was “very keen” on Boeing’s New Mid-sized Airplane (NMA) for long-and-thin transcontinental or flights from Australia to Asia from 2023-2025.
“The economics on paper look good,” Joyce said. The NMA will be going head-to-head with Airbus’ fast-selling A321neoLR and will be a replacement for older B757s.
Boeing’s NMA study is focusing on a 250-270 seat, 5,000 nautical mile range wide body that would bridge the gap between the B737 MAX 10 and the B787-8.
