Update: Qantas has delayed the resumption of flights between Brisbane and the United States, but still plans to use Airbus A330s when these routes resume in 2022.
Qantas plans to gradually resume international flights from 18 December 2021. But with Qantas’ Airbus A380s not returning to the skies until mid-2022, the Boeing 747s retired and the delivery of three more Boeing 787s deferred until next year, the airline doesn’t quite have enough planes in the short term to operate its usual schedule.
One way that Qantas will get around this is by flying Airbus A330-200s from Brisbane to Los Angeles and San Francisco. These aircraft are normally reserved for domestic flights, trans-Tasman routes and shorter international services to Asia.
Prior to COVID-19, Qantas used Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners on its Brisbane-Los Angeles and Brisbane-San Francisco routes.
From 19 December 2021, Qantas currently plans to operate 3x weekly services from Brisbane to Los Angeles using A330-200s. Assuming the Queensland government allows international travel by then – which is by no means guaranteed – Qantas would operate the following flights on this route:
- QF15 Brisbane 10:40 – Los Angeles 06:05 (Wednesdays, Fridays & Sundays)
- QF16 Los Angeles 23:20 – Brisbane 07:45 +2 days (Wednesdays, Fridays & Sundays)
Meanwhile, current schedules would see Qantas resuming the following non-stop Brisbane-San Francisco flights using A330-200s from 14 February 2022:
- QF59 Brisbane 21:30 – San Francisco 16:50 (Mondays, Thursdays & Saturdays)
- QF60 San Francisco 22:00 – Brisbane 06:25 +2 days (Mondays, Thursdays & Saturdays)
As it happens, this Brisbane-Los Angeles service will be the only remaining eastbound Qantas trans-Pacific service to depart in the morning. Qantas has retimed its Sydney-Los Angeles, Melbourne-Los Angeles, Sydney-Dallas/Fort Worth and Sydney-San Francisco services to depart in the evening. (The Sydney-Honolulu and Sydney-Vancouver routes already departed in the late evening and will continue to do so.)
For passengers, the Airbus A330 is a comfortable aircraft to fly on. The Qantas A330 Business Class seats are almost identical to those found on the Boeing 787-9, except that there is no privacy divider between the Business seats in the centre section.
In Economy, some passengers may even prefer the A330’s 2-4-2 seating layout over the tight 3-3-3 configuration on the Boeing 787. The Qantas A330 Economy seats are wider than the Boeing 787 Economy seats, although there is an extra inch of legroom on the Dreamliner.
On the internationally configured A330-200s, there are seat-back in-flight entertainment screens at every seat.
The main downside for passengers is that there are significantly fewer Business seats and no Premium Economy cabin on the Airbus A330. This means there will likely be fewer opportunities to snag Business reward seats or upgrades on the Brisbane-Los Angeles route (in particular), and no option to upgrade to Premium Economy.
Operational challenges for Qantas
For Qantas, there are some challenges involved in using A330s on such long flights.
According to Qantas’ own website, the standard range of an Airbus A330-200 with full payload is 8,500km. But the distance from Brisbane to San Francisco is 11,367km and Brisbane-Los Angeles covers 11,525km.
Qantas is in the process of getting approval from Airbus to extend the range of its A330-200s to allow flights on some trans-Pacific routes. This doesn’t involve any physical changes to the aircraft, but Airbus does need to sign off on some documentation.
This isn’t the only hurdle Qantas needs to overcome. With westbound Los Angeles-Brisbane and San Francisco-Brisbane flights both clocking in at 14 hours and 25 minutes, flights will likely have to be weight-restricted. Qantas may not be able to sell 100% of seats and could be limited in the amount of freight it’s able to carry due to the amount of fuel that will need to be uplifted and maximum take-off weight restrictions.
With crew duty times on the westbound sectors exceeding 15 hours, Qantas will also need to provide crew rest facilities on these flights. But unlike the A380s and 787s which have bunk beds for the crew, Qantas does not have a dedicated cabin crew rest area on its A330-200s.
To overcome this problem, it seems Qantas plans to block one Business Class seat to use for pilot rest and an additional 20 Economy seats to use as a cabin crew rest area.
You can see on the seat map that Qantas is not selling the Business Class seat 5A on its Brisbane-Los Angeles services. (5K already doesn’t exist as there is a toilet there, but there is normally a seat at 5A on this configuration of the A330-200):
In Economy, Qantas has blocked five rows of Economy seats in the middle section from rows 33-37:
On mid-range international flights operated by A330-200s, such as Sydney-Manila, Qantas normally just blocks seats 37A/B and 37J/K in Economy class to use as curtained crew rest areas.
As Qantas would not be able to sell every seat due to weight restrictions anyway, this solution kills two birds with one stone. But it does reduce the number of Business seats available for sale on each flight to 26, and the Economy class capacity is reduced to 204 seats.
I do wonder if the cabin crew rest conditions are really conducive to peaceful sleep. Each crew member would have a row of four Economy seats to sleep across during their break, which is better than nothing. But many of us who’ve tried to sleep across a row of Economy seats know that it’s not the same as a proper bed.
The crew will also be surrounded by other passengers with potentially only a makeshift curtain separating them from the rest of the Economy cabin. (The seats being allocated are also right in front of the toilets.) I can already see confused passengers moving themselves into the crew rest seats and waking up cabin crew during their rest breaks to ask for a drink.
Qantas has flown A330-200s to Los Angeles before. But those flights operated as Sydney-Auckland-Los Angeles-New York, meaning the overall sector lengths were shorter.
It all sounds like a typical Qantas shambles. The A330 is an eminently unsuitable plane for this purpose – range issues, cannot fill, not crew rest areas, limited baggage/freight. Why aren’t the new 787s arriving. They never fail to disappoint….
Just run the A330 via Fiji and top up the tanks there
Hard to see it working:
Offload pax, top-up, swap crew, re-board. On Fiji time that adds at least 3 hours, not to mention the airside lounge facility is max 200 pax for all concurrent flights combined. Direct competition with a One World connect partner. Unless 5th freedom kicks in, it’s an expensive stop.
Greg, are you really serious? Try buying a Landcruiser and you can wait 6-12 months and you think QANTAS or any other airline can just turn on the tap and get a plane like the 787 delivered in 2 months.
Other than that I agree with your other comments. Though I seriously doubt whether Brisbane will be ready to accept travellers by then, so its probably a mute point. It would probably make more sense to have the flights go to Sydney and have a domestic connection.
That would require Q to pay the outstanding amounts on the B787s – Q is not exactly flush with cash to say the least. They went into Negative Net Tangible Assets despite their 2020 capital raising. All their previously earned profits were used to fund buybacks which artificially inflates earnngs per share. EPS is coincidentally a KPI for senior exec bonuses. Their last buyback was conducted BEFORE Q had actually made some profits (to have to pay tax on). So it resulted in Q paying out ‘franking credits’ on the buyback that it did not, and still does not, have.… Read more »
Can’t argue with you on that…
Sounds like a Dog’s Breakfast. I’ll fly via Sydney…..
Passengers paying extra and expecting to get seat back entertainment in the Extra Legroom seats (as per the Qantas picture) might be disappointed, but that’s Qantas. Truth bomb; you get a front row view of the toilets, and other passengers will congregate around your seat the entire 13 hours.
I think it’s actually positive. The airline is attempting to make a move in the right direction. As always it is easy to critic, but they must work within their equipment capability. Hope it does.
In the old days they used to break in Hawaii. That would add time to the flight, but I’d honestly feel a lot safer with them doing that rather than cutting their fuel leeway.
Rest assured there is no reduction in the fuel ‘leeway’ as part of this. The fuel required is non-negotiable. The part that will be cut is how many passengers / how much freight can be carried. The A330 is an interesting aircraft type. It has a fuel capacity well beyond what is typically used on 9-10 hour sectors – as shown by the fact the military use them as refuelling tankers with no additional tanks added. There have also been numerous delivery flights flown by 330s direct from Europe to Australia non-stop. There is definitely no issue with the aircraft’s… Read more »
With limited flights, it’s a missed opportunity not to go via HNL – could time with the SYD flight and offer onwards travel to LAX & SFO – not to mention the other AA/AS connections.
Also, if you’re coming from MEL then a stop in HNL might be a really nice change. If there were more direct flights from HNL to destinations in the US it would actually be a lot better than going via SYD or BNE, which I’ve often been forced to do.
ugghh. One more reason not to rush back to North America. Can’t imagine a 14+ hour flight in the rear of a A330 or 787. Looks like I won’t be flying to North America unless/until the 380s are back in service. Shame QF went with 787s instead of A350s too – my loyalties are going to be tested by that. Physically unable to go more than 5-6 hours on a 787 in Y.
They are planning to have 350s and 787s – it was never a case of one or the other. If not for Covid, they’d already have ordered the 350s. Fingers crossed it still happens. 380s kick off to LA in July.
The A330 is a lovely domestic airliner but would be a disaster on long haul, poor crew trying to get proper rest breaks. Hawaii sounds a good option, stay a few days after entering the US territory. I think Qantas are totally misreading the Aussie demand for International travel, we have lost 2 years so bring those great A380’s back ASAP.
QF aren’t misreading anything, a one stopper via HNL = $$$. They’re already bleeding money and trying to put services back on with what equipment they have, if it works great, if not they’ll drop the route(s) and wait until they can operate the 787 on those sectors. You can’t fly what you don’t have, even the 380’s won’t be back until mid 22′
QF has cancelled BNE – SFO flights for 1st week of July, and hasn’t yet reaccomodated PAX on either of 2 BNE -LAX flights… so not sure what new plan is?
so why go Qantas in an old A332 which is almost certainly going to have to stop in Fiji for fuel, when you can fly Fiji Airways, a much better airline, with much better & newer aircraft for 1/3 of the cost. A no brainer really.
Once again it’s Joyce placing his customers on second rate aircraft and charging champagne prices.
What a joke .
There are lots of options and Brisbane gets second hit not his beloved Sydney