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travelhound wrote:Using the 787 as the replacement aircraft for QF Internationals fleet, my numbers suggest the purchase of 27 new 787's at a cost of $3.5b over five years will only reduce the average of the fleet to 9.5 years. To reduce the fleet to eight years, an additional $1.2b of aircraft CAPEX will be required.
This equates to $1b of CAPEX spending for QF International per year. These are fairly significant numbers. Something will ultimately have to change in the near future.
globalcabotage wrote:No update on new routes? SEA / ORD, or the entitled Midwest airports?
Sydscott wrote:travelhound wrote:Using the 787 as the replacement aircraft for QF Internationals fleet, my numbers suggest the purchase of 27 new 787's at a cost of $3.5b over five years will only reduce the average of the fleet to 9.5 years. To reduce the fleet to eight years, an additional $1.2b of aircraft CAPEX will be required.
This equates to $1b of CAPEX spending for QF International per year. These are fairly significant numbers. Something will ultimately have to change in the near future.
I think there are two distinct, but intertwined, questions on the QF International fleet:
1. Which aircraft will replace the 744ER's and A380's?
2. Which aircraft will replace the A330's?
The answer to the second question will not be known until after Boeing finalises what it is doing with the 797. If Qantas opts for the 797 then this aircraft will likely be the replacement for a portion of the A332's along with some 738's to ensure domestic has enough overall capacity in system. It would then be logical for the remaining A330's to be replaced from either the 787 family or the A350 family with it being logical that more 787's were ordered from the options book but that is dependant on the 744 / A380 replacement question.
If QF decides on the 77X family for the 744 / A380 replacement then I'd say we will definitely see 787's replace the A330's. If QF opts for the A350 family to replace the 744's and A380's then I'd say we will see derivatives of the A350 or A330NEO's replace the remaining A330's.
Both of these outcomes are dependant on which aircraft is selected for Project Sunrise. So until we see the outcome of Project Sunrise you won't see an answer to question 1 nor an answer to what will replace the International A330's. Until Boeing cracks on with the 797 and QF can run a competition between it and the Airbus competitor, (probably a derivative of the A321), we won't know which way the QF narrowbody fleet will go. So I'd say it'll be a while, sans further QF International expansion with the 789, before any substantial orders are placed to replace much of the current mainline fleet.
travelhound wrote:Another interesting snippet from the QANTAs slide show. Page 6 states Qantas Domestic now has more departures from capital ports compared to its competitor (Virgin Australia).
travelhound wrote:Another interesting snippet from the QANTAs slide show. Page 6 states Qantas Domestic now has more departures from capital ports compared to its competitor (Virgin Australia).
This suggest QANTAS have restructured their route network to a stage where they now have the critical mass to gain market share. With QANTAS domestic reporting load factors of 787.7%, increasing load factors by 5 basis points could yield them an additional 1% of the market without the need to add capacity.
Will be interesting to see how this plays out.