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What's Wrong With QF 744's?

Thai744 From Thailand, joined Jun 2004, 95 posts, RR: 0
Posted (11 months 4 weeks 1 day 10 hours ago) and read 1239 times:

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I've been keeping an eye on QF departures and arrivals for the past month or so.

QF1 and QF 5 from SYD seem to be delayed about 3 or 4 days out of 5.

And not just short delays - 3, 4, 5... sometimes 6 hours.

For example, today (10 December) QF 1 is showing estimated time of departure at 2130. (Due to leave 1805).

This "terminal lateness" has deterred me from booking QF for my next trip between BKK and SYD or vv.
And it has done the same for about 2 or 3 other expats I know.

Anyone know what's causing all these delays?

Do they have some 744's out of action at the moment?

3 replies: All unread, jump to last

QFA380 From Australia, joined Jul 2005, 1750 posts, RR: 2
Reply 1, posted (11 months 4 weeks 1 day 10 hours ago) and read 1227 times:

When QF decided on their long-term route structure years ago, the A380 being on time was a critical part of it. Some bright spark at QF decided that they would be able to increase frequencies and new cities (SFO). These have been added at the great expense of the QF 744 fleets health. They are probably among the hardest working 747's in the world. When QF starts receieving their A380's the pressure will start to ease. I'd say some of the older ones will be forced into an earlier than expected retirement which may be why QF bought an extra 8 A380's.

Also SYD has seen some pretty bad weather in the last week so I guess QF could be losing you as a customer just because the weather is bad. By bad, I'm talking very bad, strong winds, strongs storms not much visibilty but yeah, you get that.

Living in the Buff..... Michigan on exchange

Thai744 From Thailand, joined Jun 2004, 95 posts, RR: 0
Reply 2, posted (11 months 4 weeks 1 day 9 hours ago) and read 1214 times:

Yeah, get your point, but bad weather isn't the cause of ALL the delays occuring at the moment.

Nothing too bad with the weather today in Sydney, but QF1 still over 3 hours late.

Zkpilot From New Zealand, joined Mar 2006, 2876 posts, RR: 5
Reply 3, posted (11 months 3 weeks 6 days 10 hours ago) and read 867 times:

QF's fleet of 744s is tired and whilst the mx is good and QF is still safe, due to the A380 delays there is just no way that the 744s can get all the mx work they need to be at peak reliability. So something happens and there you have a delay while it gets fixed. Also any delay for other reasons somewhere along the way can affect a large part of the network for some time after (flights waiting, flights arriving late, time for mx etc). The Pacific 744s are the lucky ones in some respects as they get to rest up in LAX for the day and get mx done. They still end up with a high utilization even with this layover.
As mentioned, QF has been waiting for the A380 for some time and it really has stuffed up a lot of things for QF (been practically no growth over the past year etc)

46 types. 21 countries for me and counting

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