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Old 15th December 2009, 12:00 AM
Nick Te Mata Nick Te Mata is offline
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The chances of QF having the winglets fitted would be very slim at best; the benefits of these winglets are felt primarily on long sectors (over about 3500kms, if memory serves) and the cost not insignificant -- some strengthening has to be done to the wing structure and for QF's high-utilisation 767 fleet, the downtime would be a factor too.

QF use their 767s on really unique 'missions' for the type. These winglets, in addition to reducing drag (thus fuel consumption), they also increase takeoff performance, give higher optimal cruise etc. These factors aren't a concern for QF 767s in their dominant missions -- SYD-MEL at full payload is a cakewalk and in many ways, the 767 is overqualified for many of the jobs QF use it in which make winglets redundant. Result of this is probably the shortest average sector length of any 767 operator worldwide, with quite high cycles. 10 years ago QF would've jumped at winglets for the GE aircraft (sector lengths of 9-10 hours almost exclusively -- these 767s worked as far afield as YYZ) but nowadays that's an exception to the norm for QF's current day 763 deployment.

QF has a 'sub-fleet' of international config 767s (8 frames) with the remaining 21 in domestic configs, though those 8 intl aircraft still do a lot of short-haul and are probably on borrowed time flying to HNL, MNL and NRT, and will eventually end up where the majority of 763s have. Winglets are a longer-term investment and it doesn't seem like they'd end up paying for themselves if they were to be installed, even on the few aircraft doing medium-haul.

The usable life of QF's 767s is probably much shorter than AA et al frames which still do a lot of 6+ hour work. For NZ, their winglets have been netting some massive fuel savings (reportedly 19%) but the shortest sector they'll do is 3 hours trans-tasman and balance those with many longer ones (AKL-PER, HNL, KIX and RAR/LAX).
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