Wednesday 22 April 2015's B744 QF18 is delayed from its usual 2355 hours departure ex LAX to SYD until 2230 on Thursday night - almost a 23 hour delay.
QF suggests that this means an 0610 arrival in SYD on Saturday 25 April instead of 0740 on Friday 24.
(QF18 had departed JFK at 2307 instead of 1845 on Wednesday 22 Aoril, arriving LAX at the unpleasant hour of 0407 on Thursday 23 (today!) rather than the timetabled 2140.)
QF12 departed LAX two hours and 56 minutes late but is expected to be only an hour and 50 minutes late into SYD at 0800 on Friday morning.
The QF website does not yet indicate if any B744 departures timetabled for Friday 24 April will be delayed ex SYD such as JNB, LAX, NRT or SCL so perhaps QF has a spare up its sleeve sitting in SYD, although the relatively new B744 flights to LAX must have reduced the chances of that a bit. I assume that it depends on whether there is much planned maintenance going on at present.
Perhaps someone can confirm if QF is flying a replacement aircraft across from Oz (but it may not have one) or whether the B744 is to be repaired in LAX in time for tomorrow night's revised departure time, or whether it is simply something to do with crew hours being exceeded due to the late arrival of QF18 ex JFK.
Such a 24 hour delay must be a reasonably significant expense when one considers extra payments to crew, hotel rooms for staff and passengers, amended catering arrangements, possible need to substitute an aircraft back in Oz for another flight and so on.
