Qantas A380 reliability issues creeping up again?

[Mwenenzi]

BA certainly seem to have their share of problems with A380's, but agree that the ones you mentioned seem to have less problems than QF. I can't help but wonder whether EK, SQ, OZ, QR etc all timetable their A380's to have a bit more time on the ground at their bases between each out and back journey for the engineers to work on them instead of running them ragged with only the occassional day at LAX for the engineers to have a bit of time to work on them.

EK have a large fleet of A380, with DXB home base at the center of destinations. The next have about 10% of EK aircraft
QF send A380 to a range of destinations. I wonder if other airlines with a small A380 fleet send to a smaller range of destinations?
With any fault/delay with a QF A380 is seems to take days to recover. More so is a at non AU airport. And other airlines have other wide body aircraft to call on if issues happen. QF work the wide body fleet hard and with long sectors (as the geography).
As a guess may be some at QF who regret that 2 A380's were sent to the scrap yard.

List of Airbus A380 operators - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

[click on current)

List of Airbus A380 orders and deliveries - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Melburnian1]

@vhojm 's post was prescient.

On Sunday 11 January 2026, A388 VH-OQK as QF63 SYD-JNB (the 0930 hours) was still taxiing at 1113 AEDT.

 

[Melburnian1]

You then need to consider that the A330 fleet also have major operational meltdowns regularly and the conclusion is that Qantas (more like Qantas customers) is simply paying the price for having poor fleet management. Old planes + tight turnarounds +3-5 years in the desserts has made QFi very unreliable.

If I may venture briefly off topic (as thread is about QFi's A380s), a problem with the A330s is that QFi is operating to too many destinations, with some not daily.

I assume maintenance ability (and parts' ready availability) at these 'outstations' varies from excellent to only passable when things go awry.

Your A380 comments were spot on.

 

[DC3]

[On Sunday 11 January 2026, A388 VH-OQK as QF63 SYD-JNB (the 0930 hours) was still taxiing at 1113 AEDT.

Long taxi

 

[vhojm]

Long taxi

It pushed back at 10:59, it was a quick taxi but the plane was 90 minutes late because of late inbound from LAX

 

[Saab34]

As a guess may be some at QF who regret that 2 A380's were sent to the scrap yard.

On the flip side, a smaller fleet and tight capacity might make them exit the fleet sooner.

 

[Peasant]

Many other carriers conduct a greater level of engineering in house and at a larger base, much easier to swap out aircraft, likewise easier to source parts and conduct the work. That all flows down to better reliability. Emirates can probably fix an issue overnight while Qantas would need a week locally.

QF could invest more in local engineering but that’s a choice they have made. Plenty of room in Melbourne to build a new facility, and state governments would often throw cash about.

When I lived in Singapore, the investment bankers were desperate to get SQ to sell SIAEC, which is their in-house maintenance division. SQ's senior management was aghast at the thought, as they said this would severely impede their ability to operate as a reliable network carrier...