Qantas is busily preparing to restart international flights from next month. The airline will begin with flights from Sydney to London and Los Angeles, currently on sale from 14 November 2021, and gradually ramp up services over the following months.
It sounds great, in theory. But Qantas doesn’t actually have enough planes to operate all of the international flights it is currently selling for next year!
Australian Frequent Flyer analysed Qantas’ international Boeing 787 flight schedules into next year. While Qantas has enough planes to operate its advertised schedule up to mid-February, there’s a reasonable chance your flight will eventually get changed or cancelled if you’re booked to fly on or after 14 February 2022. Here’s why…
Qantas’ Boeing 787 schedules over the coming months
From mid-December 2021, Qantas currently plans to operate the following international flights using its fleet of 11 Boeing 787-9 aircraft:
- QF1/2 Sydney-Darwin-London (daily)
- QF9/10 Melbourne-Darwin-London (daily)
- QF11/12 Sydney-Los Angeles (daily)
- QF75/76 Sydney-Vancouver (Mondays, Thursdays & Saturdays)
- QF93/94 Melbourne-Los Angeles (Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays & Sundays)
According to our analysis, Qantas would need a minimum of 9-10 Boeing 787-9s to operate all of these flights. So far, so good.
But from 14 February 2022, Qantas also plans to resume 3x weekly Sydney-San Francisco flights and 4x weekly Sydney-Dallas/Fort Worth flights using Boeing 787-9s. Qantas would need at least two more Boeing 787-9s to operate these routes at those frequencies.
Then, from 27 March 2022, Qantas is also selling seats on daily Sydney-Johannesburg and 4x weekly Sydney-Santiago flights – also operated by Boeing 787-9s. It also plans to increase the frequency of its Melbourne-Los Angeles flights to daily.
Qantas would need at least 14 Boeing 787-9s to operate the schedule currently on sale beyond 27 March 2022. There’s just one problem: Qantas has only 11 Boeing 787-9s in its fleet.
A shortage of planes
Qantas does have another three Boeing 787-9 aircraft on order from Boeing. But in late August, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said he had deferred the delivery of these planes until the 2022-23 financial year (so, July 2022 at the very earliest).
Meanwhile, all of Qantas’ remaining Boeing 747s were retired last year. And the Airbus A380s will remain grounded until at least July 2022, when Qantas plans to bring two A380s out of long-term storage in the Californian desert to use on the Sydney-Los Angeles route. (Ten Airbus A380s will eventually return to service, but not for a few years.)
Qantas recently changed its London-Sydney schedule to a morning departure from London, with an evening arrival into Sydney. Its flights from Sydney and Melbourne to the United States also now depart late in the evening, instead of the morning. This significantly reduces the amount of time Qantas 787s will be sitting on the ground at London Heathrow and Los Angeles, allowing better fleet utilisation.
Even with this improved utilisation, the flying kangaroo’s schedules beyond 14 February 2022 don’t add up. According to our analysis, it would simply be impossible for Qantas to reliably run all of the flights that are now on sale beyond this date.
Qantas could make its February & March schedules work by reducing the frequency of its Melbourne-Los Angeles route from 4x weekly to 3x weekly – a simple enough change. By only using Boeing 787s for the Darwin-London section of its Melbourne-Darwin-London flights, it could also add a bit more flexibility to the schedule in case an aircraft goes out of service.
But that only gets the airline through to 27 March 2022, when Qantas plans to additionally resume flights to Johannesburg, Santiago and add more Melbourne-Los Angeles services. By adjusting its London-Sydney and Sydney-Los Angeles schedules again beyond 27 March, Qantas could reduce the number of Boeing 787s needed to operate its schedule from 14 to 13. But the airline would still be short by a couple of planes.
Even then, there would be no spare aircraft in case any planes needed maintenance and there will be very little “slack” in the schedule to allow recovery from delays. This could lead to severe delays and disruptions to the Qantas international network if any Boeing 787s suffered mechanical problems.
Qantas will fly Airbus A330s from Brisbane to the USA
Qantas is already making changes to its Airbus A330-200s so they can be used on the Brisbane-Los Angeles and Brisbane-San Francisco routes. The airline has been forced to do this by a lack of Boeing 787-9s, which are normally used for these long-haul routes.
But there are no other aircraft types in Qantas’ current fleet that are capable of operating the other long-haul routes currently scheduled as Boeing 787 services. The only exceptions are the Sydney-Darwin and Melbourne-Darwin legs of Qantas’ flights to London via Darwin.
Airlines adapting to a dynamic environment
Qantas does offer refunds to customers whose flights are cancelled (although it can take 8 weeks). Thanks to the airline’s Fly Flexible policy, Qantas passengers with international bookings made until 28 February 2022, for travel until 31 December 2022, can also access fee-free changes or cancel for a flight credit.
That’s a good thing, since it is inevitable that at least some of the Qantas flights currently on sale for next year will have to be cancelled.
In fairness to Qantas, it is certainly not the only airline currently selling flights that are unlikely to operate. In fact, some airlines have been selling so-called “ghost flights” throughout the pandemic.
Many other airlines have also not yet adjusted their flight schedules beyond 27 March 2022, which happens to be the end of IATA’s northern winter scheduling period. Beyond this date, many airlines are just selling their pre-covid flight schedules for now as a placeholder, until they have an opportunity to analyse demand and finalise their schedules closer to the time.
A Qantas spokesperson told Australian Frequent Flyer that the current dynamic environment means the airline is continuing to work on its upcoming international schedule and its plans for next year.
“We are planning for an international restart process that’s both complex and uncertain given the many changing travel restrictions. This means that we have to make a number of planning assumptions and adapt our schedule as we approach the restart of each market and more information becomes available,” the Qantas spokesperson said.
When the Australian government announced at the beginning of this month that international travel from NSW may resume from November, Qantas immediately added new flights to London and Los Angeles to meet the new demand it saw. But many other international airlines are waiting for further clarity from the Australian government about the reopening of international borders before adjusting their flight schedules into Australia.
“We do have flexibility in our fleet plan to operate what is currently published if there were to be no changes,” the Qantas spokesperson added.
I suspect the missing planes will be handled by Operational changes and people booked on an unserviced flight will simply be advised they have been transferred to an alternative. Very cunning move by Qantas to ensure fully subscribed flights . Or maybe they plan to re-deploy the A380s a bit earlier than previously announce.
I have a flight booked in June on QF1 and that states Sydney/Singapore /London. Do you have information that it will change to via Darwin
Darwin appears to be a temporary technical stop until Perth may be opened again from April 2022 to operate QF9/10. It is the current plan that Qantas is using Darwin instead of Perth until April 2022. Your flight QF1 in June may be going back to Singapore as per your booking if the transit arrangement at Changi is possible. Check back with Qantas at later days toward your departure for the confirmation of your transit stop.
Ignoring published schedules, from an aircraft utilisation point of view, my calculations has the full schedule at 10.6 aircraft. The night flights to the US mean they don’t need two dedicated aircraft for the route, they’ll dovetail with other routes.
Is that calculation for the schedule from 14 February-26 March, or 27 March onwards? While I think Qantas could make the post-14 February schedule work with just some minor changes (and the potential for a few delays if any planes go out of service), the published schedule beyond 27 March seems particularly problematic. If they kept the morning departure for QF2 (LHR-SYD) and the evening departures from Australia to the US, they would still need 4 frames for SYD-LHR & SYD-LAX, 4 frames for MEL-LHR & MEL-LAX, 3 frames for SYD-JNB, SYD-SFO & SYD-DFW, and 2 frames for SYD-SCL &… Read more »
The initial schedule can be done with 6 aircraft – if you move SYD-YVR to Tue,Thu,Sat (so that aircraft are either flying MEL-LAX or MEL-SYD-YVR each day). In fact you can already see 787 flights between MEL-SYD. Basically the times work that an aircraft will fly SYD-LHR-SYD-LAX-SYD which takes less than 72 hours. Similarly, MEL-LHR-MEL-LAX-MEL (or -SYD-YVR-SYD-) takes less than 72 hours. So aircraft 1-3 will do SYD-LHR-SYD-LAX-SYD, aircraft 4-6 will do MEL-LHR-MEL-LAX-MEL. Even with that schedule, the aircraft is on the ground at SYD between 6:20 – 17:00 in between the LAX and LHR trips. Another two for SYD-SFO/DFW… Read more »
That is one method you could use to calculate aircraft utilisation, but it doesn’t work in the real world because airlines can only arrive/depart at certain airports like LHR at their slot times, and it is not commercially viable to operate flights to long-haul destinations at a different time everyday. (Air Asia X once tried doing this on its short-lived flights from KUL to Europe… and well, they were short-lived for a reason.) It’s definitely not possible to operate daily SYD-LHR and SYD-LAX flights using 3 aircraft. Even if there was a short turnaround (say, 90 minutes) between every flight,… Read more »
Is there any possibility some A380’s might be returned earlier than currently planned if the demand was high enough on certain routes?
Anything’s possible, although it would take a bit of time to retrain the pilots, get the aircraft ready, etc.
I would say it’s more likely that some flights will get cancelled.
If they’re still quarantining crews, they’ll run out of people to do the flights before they run out of aircraft.
Presumably they can do code share flights and put people on planes operated by other airlines.
I think they announced they are bring the other three 787s forward, hence the date for the expanded service.
Do you have a source for this? The last I heard was in late August 2021, when Alan Joyce announced the 3 deferred 787 deliveries would arrive in FY23 (i.e. between July 2022-June 2023).
All three are in Victorville – two are fully painted in QF liveries and the final is a white tail (although the tail is painted in QF livery but not the fuselage).
Seems to be a pretty easy process for QF to take early delivery of these, I doubt there will be any complaints from Boeing. I’m guessing Qantas didn’t expect the international market to rebound so quickly and for the government to open to all countries at once, with 7 days home quarantine in the case of NSW.
The 3 additional 787s (to make a total of 14) have been collelcted and are in storage in the US.
You are correct. Also don’t be surprised if A380 return to service before July.
QF just signed up again with Emirates
so they could code share the extra flights with them
Alan Joyce has never ordered a single aircraft for Qantas mainline. Perhaps it’s about time he does.
So I have MEL LAX flights booked for April/May departing on Tuesdays. Does this mean it’s a ghost flight? As I’ve just read Mon Wed Fri Sun for these schedules.
Now what do I do?
Currently, Qantas is scheduling the resumption of daily MEL-LAX flights (up from 4x weekly) starting from 27 March 2022. Things are likely to change between now and then, but you don’t really need to do anything for now. If your booked flight is cancelled at some point, Qantas would likely automatically rebook you on a MEL-LAX flight the following/previous day or via SYD/BNE on the same day. Alternatively, you would be entitled to a refund if Qantas cancels your flight.
Will QF only fly one flight through to London initially which means Mel Drw will be A330, and Syd- Drw also potentailly A330. Or do they redeploy jetstar 787s and offer PY and Y?
This is not currently the plan. Both the MEL-LHR and SYD-LHR flights are scheduled as 787s the whole way, with a transit stop in Darwin.
I’m booked in September for my flight home – LHR-PER-SYD on the 787-9. I’ve got family here so can afford to sit tight till everything is properly back to normal. Should be interesting, though I imagine by then if demand really picks up they’ll go pedal to the metal to get at least a few A380s back for the SYD/SIN/LHR route, and possibly MEL/SIN/LHR as well, which should free up capacity for the quieter long hauls. If they are super squeezed they could even base just two A380s in SIN for the SIN-LHR leg, and then use the 787s to… Read more »
I believe that what Qantas is doing is assuming that at least one of their planned routes will not happen as scheduled due to CoVID. Therefor they are betting that they can simply reallocate that aircraft and make up for the shortfall. Think of it the same as overselling tickets on a plane, expecting that not all passengers will actually show up for the flight.