Qantas A380 refurbishment news and updates

[elanshin]

Mostly technological. But also thr jarring nature of a refurbishment coming out in 2026 alongside their a350 F.

But yes if they intend to fly longer, the least they need to do is the a330 treatment where Y all gets upgrades. But then if you do that PE is going to be in an awkward spot. Arguably worse than the extra leg space Y seats.

And as i mentioned, it should be a flag to QF if every other major current a380 operator is going through a refurbishment indicating their perception that the a380 will fly well onto the 2030s.

Will QF ditch the a380 when the whole a350-1000 come along or turn it into more complimentary services.

I still think there are key trunk routes that the a380 would be suitable for even with the a350 arrival. Just perhaps not a fleet of 10.

 

[RSD]

Time to start scouting the second hand market for more A380s to expand the fleet.

Very hard to predict what the capacity needs are going to be in the future, but something larger than an A330 on the Hong Kong runs would be good!

 

[Himeno]

but something larger than an A330 on the Hong Kong runs would be good!

Same for HND, if they can work out the schedule problems A380 operation at HND presents.

 

[RSD]

Same for HND, if they can work out the schedule problems A380 operation at HND presents.

Would HND be keen for A380's given the lack of space there?

 

[Himeno]

Would HND be keen for A380's given the lack of space there?

There are 2 gates at HND T3 which have 3 jet bridges for A380s (had been 3 gates prior to covid).
They only allow 1 A380 on the ground at a time, and only during the night slot period. QF could run an A380 there, but it would have to arrive, be serviced and depart again between 10pm and 6am.

eg, they could run a day flight north, arrive at 10pm and depart back to Australia at midnight. But they don't seem to like having SYD-HND day flights, and they don't appear to want to have a MEL-HND A380.
Other option is to arrive around 4am (like the 747 QF25), then depart just before 6, but then that leads to the problems with early morning ground travel to HND as with a 6am departure, people would need to check in by ~4.30am, and the trains don't start until 5.

 

[RSD]

There are 2 gates at HND T3 which have 3 jet bridges for A380s (had been 3 gates prior to covid).
They only allow 1 A380 on the ground at a time, and only during the night slot period. QF could run an A380 there, but it would have to arrive, be serviced and depart again between 10pm and 6am.

eg, they could run a day flight north, arrive at 10pm and depart back to Australia at midnight. But they don't seem to like having SYD-HND day flights, and they don't appear to want to have a MEL-HND A380.
Other option is to arrive around 4am (like the 747 QF25), then depart just before 6, but then that leads to the problems with early morning ground travel to HND as with a 6am departure, people would need to check in by ~4.30am, and the trains don't start until 5.

Starting to sound like it might be in the too hard basket...

 

[D747]

I see VH-OQK has popped up on FR24 as "On ground at AUH" in the last few days. Should we be getting excited?

 

[D747]

I see VH-OQK has popped up on FR24 as "On ground at AUH" in the last few days. Should we be getting excited?

I guess not

 

[markis10]

QF6014 AUH-SYD departing 10:00am on Friday 20/12/24 and arriving in SYD at 7:30am Saturday 21/12/24

 

[markis10]

OQK did a 4 hour test flight overnight.

 

[FlyingKangaroo]

Seems the SYD-JNB flight which has been scheduled to operate 6x weekly (no Tuesday flights) has now been axed on 5 additional days in March. Fortunately we were flexible enough to be able to shift our travel plans a day earlier and were able to do this online without a hassle, but I suspect it has to do with these continuing issues getting the 380 back at full operation.

Overall now operating just 22/31 days in March.

 

[moa999]

And OQK scheduled back to Sydney as QF6014 arriving SYD sat morning, departing in a few hours

 

[markis10]

It must be a little bit weird running those ferry flights for 14 hours with very few folk on board. I did 4 hours in VH-OJA back in the day when AVV was still used for QF training, walking back to the upper deck galley to grab some snacks was eerie as we did circuits and bumps.

Cannot help but wonder the cost and missed opportunity, even a quick dash up to LHR or to SIN to operate an extra commercial flight home would make sense at this time of year I would have thought. The joys of offshoring maintenance.

 

[moa999]

They sometimes seem to do that on the way to maintenance, but tend to fly direct back.. possibly QF do a more thorough check in Australia before approving for pax services.