QF Ferry Flights

[Blair M]

Perhaps a dumb question, but why does QF ferry heavy aircraft between MEL and BNE to SYD after or before a long haul?

e.g. A380 MEL-SYD and B744 BNE-SYD-BNE

Esp since some days, one ferries up whilst another ferries to BNE/MEL to take up the flying line.

With SYD being the hub, how uncommon would it be for the 744/380 to not visit SYD? Surely it would be easier to do a tail swap on a revenue service and get the plane inbound to SYD rather than ferry? Big $$ in fuel alone to ferry big planes like that empty.

Perhaps I'm missing something.

[Jason Carruthers]

In regards to the 747 that gets ferried between SYD and BNE you have to remember that only three routes are currently served by 2 class 747's which are SYD-SIN-FRA, BNE-LAX and AKL-LAX as the FRA flight is separated from the LAX flights it is necessary to position a 744 between SYD and BNE. The typical rotation may be SYD-SIN-FRA-SIN-SYD-BNE-LAX-AKL-LAX-BNE-SYD. IIRC this repositioning flight is only supposed to happen once a week but lately on the BNE-LAX route in particular 3 class 747's have been used lately necessitating a reposition as BNE currently doesn't have any 3 class routes.

This Month alone 3 class 747's OJG OJU OEG OEI have all done at least one BNE/LAX run.

[Fred C]

They are ferried to SYD for maintenance. 'A' checks or a little bit of love and attention at Sydney Base Maintenance.
Sometimes if they remain away from base for a while they accumulate deferred defects. There is manpower and parts in SYD to repair these.