QANTAS Fleet and Operations

[James Smith]

A380 VH-OQG has just completed a 2 hour 42 minute test flight as QF6029 from AUH out over the Persian Gulf.

[James Smith]

A380 VH-OQL is about to depart LAX for LHR and AUH as QF6023. Of the ten remaining QANTAS A380s, five are in service, four will be in AUH and one left in storage in VCV. OQG will probably leave AUH shortly and another will possibly commence having its wing spar inspection in SYD.

[James Smith]

A380 VH-OQG is scheduled to depart AUH in just over 3 hours as QF6024 for SYD with an estimated arrival time of 8:40 tomorrow morning. She must have passed yesterday's test flight!

[James Smith]

A380 VH-OQJ is about to take off from SYD on a 40 minutes flight west of the city. This is probably a crew training flight with QANTAS conducting similar short flights on Saturday 10/12/22 (two) with OQB and Saturday 17/12/22 with OQD.

[James Smith]

An interesting and informative article in Aviation Week about the A380 wing spar inspections and any resultant crack repairs. The paragraph on QANTAS A380s is shown hereunder:

According to the Aviation Week Network Fleet Discovery database, Qantas currently operates the only three aircraft in revenue service that are older than 12.5 years, though the real threshold of wing box production is unclear. VH-OQB is the Australian carrier’s fleet leader at 14.5 years. Singapore Airlines was the first carrier to take delivery of an A380 in October 2007, but that aircraft and several more of its early A380s have either been scrapped or are stored.

Full article: https://aviationweek.com/air-transpo...return-service

[C Patters]

Do we have any dates of when the remaining 3 x 787's will be delivered to Qantas given that they are all now in PAE & I presume getting close to being ready?

[Peter C]

FWIW : based on flight data at Boeing Test Flights per Day and production data at 787 Tables, there are seven 789s that were returned to PAE from storage ahead of the three Qantas 789s, and as yet no sign of ZNN being fully painted.
These spreadsheets show that only five 789s have been delivered from Everett since 30 October.

[C Patters]

Thanks Peter hopefully we get some movement shortly

[James Smith]

QANTAS stated that the final three B789s would be delivered in FY23 and I recall May and June 2023 specified. This dovetails well with the commencement of New York flights which at three per week will require one additional B789, although as more A380s return to service the B789 fleet will not be so stretched.

There must be a lot of work required for each previously built B789.

[Alex Lui]

According to Flightradar24.com VH-OQG due to operate QF11 today, delayed departure though.

Good to see the A380s coming back online more and more now.