Qantas boosts international capacity, wet lease Finnair aircraft

[Pushka]

And it appears the wet lease is over
OH-LTM flew SYD-BKK-HEL as AY8902/8904 on 29-Mar-2026 and re-entered AY service on 2-Apr
OH-LTS flew SYD-HKG as AY8906 on 31-Mar-2026 and has presumably gone to maintenance.

The two dry lease aircraft painted in QF colours VH-QPK/QPL remain.

Also no movement on OH-LTN from DXB, The rumoured QF purchase.

We had Qantas plane on 31 March from Bangkok instead of the Finnair plane we had on way over.

 

[moa999]

Also no movement on OH-LTN from DXB, The rumoured QF purchase.

The possible future QF purchase flew back AUH-HEL last Friday, minus AY titles.

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[moa999]

OH-LTN seemingly had a HEL-HEL test flight on Tue.

 

[Greg555]

Let's not forget why we are enduring 17 year old Qantas wet lease A333's.... Appalling fleet management decisions largely driven by former executive bonus metrics, and eleven years after the A350 flew it's first commercial flight Qantas has.....zero on it's fleet. What a continuing embarrassment this airline is.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Let's not forget why we are enduring 17 year old Qantas wet lease A333's.... Appalling fleet management decisions largely driven by former executive bonus metrics, and eleven years after the A350 flew it's first commercial flight Qantas has.....zero on it's fleet. What a continuing embarrassment this airline is.

Agree that maintaining the schedule would probably be easier if planes were newer.

But aside from that, the inside, where it perhaps counts the most, is still a current and competitive product.

 

[moa999]

Appalling fleet management decisions largely driven by former executive bonus metrics, and eleven years after the A350 flew it's first commercial flight Qantas has.....zero on it's fleet.

Not sure how you can blame Qantas management for Airbus's delays with the 35KULR.

And imagine how much longer we would be waiting if QF had picked the 777X platform for Sunrise.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Let's not forget why we are enduring 17 year old Qantas wet lease A333's.... Appalling fleet management decisions largely driven by former executive bonus metrics, and eleven years after the A350 flew it's first commercial flight Qantas has.....zero on it's fleet. What a continuing embarrassment this airline is.

Yet doing very well.

 

[Melburnian1]

Yet doing very well.

QFi often isn't "doing very well'.

On routes where there's other carriers, often QFi's market share is smaller than its rivals.

The important SYD and MEL to SIN routes are cases in point. SQ (and subsidiary TR) blitz QFi and JQi in frequencies and number of passengers carried.

QFi and JQi don't fly to Malaysia, and there are no nonstop Qantas group flights ex MEL to the extremely busy MNL airport in Philippines.

Similarly, when fully operating, the ME3 carry far more passengers out of Australia to Europe than QFi.

Nor does QFi fly to a central European gateway such as FRA. QFi's flights to CDG and FCO are not even daily.

Two thirds of passengers departing Australia do not use QFi or JQi. The market is sovereign and it has a clear preference for foreign airlines despite the QF group's home ground advantage.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

QFi often isn't "doing very well'.

On routes where there's other carriers, often QFi's market share is smaller than its rivals.

The important SYD and MEL to SIN routes are cases in point. SQ (and subsidiary TR) blitz QFi and JQi in frequencies and number of passengers carried.

QFi and JQi don't fly to Malaysia, and there are no nonstop Qantas group flights ex MEL to the extremely busy MNL airport in Philippines.

Similarly, when fully operating, the ME3 carry far more passengers out of Australia to Europe than QFi.

Nor does QFi fly to a central European gateway such as FRA. QFi's flights to CDG and FCO are not even daily.

Two thirds of passengers departing Australia do not use QFi or JQi. The market is sovereign and it has a clear preference for foreign airlines despite the QF group's home ground advantage.

Qfi is doing extremely well for a niche carrier that doesn’t have a strategic hub.

And that’s the key difference between QF and say EK or SQ. Both the latter have hubs that can connect anywhere with anywhere. QF simply doesn’t have that strategic advantage.

Just look at its profits compared to its size, and taking into account our very high wages bill in Australia… I think it’s doing very well!

 

[justinbrett]

QFi often isn't "doing very well'.

On routes where there's other carriers, often QFi's market share is smaller than its rivals.

The important SYD and MEL to SIN routes are cases in point. SQ (and subsidiary TR) blitz QFi and JQi in frequencies and number of passengers carried.

QFi and JQi don't fly to Malaysia, and there are no nonstop Qantas group flights ex MEL to the extremely busy MNL airport in Philippines.

Similarly, when fully operating, the ME3 carry far more passengers out of Australia to Europe than QFi.

Nor does QFi fly to a central European gateway such as FRA. QFi's flights to CDG and FCO are not even daily.

Two thirds of passengers departing Australia do not use QFi or JQi. The market is sovereign and it has a clear preference for foreign airlines despite the QF group's home ground advantage.

You seem to scatter this same post in various threads across AFF, despite many people showing flaws with your selective statements.

Cherry picking the Australia-European market stat is just ignorant, as everybody who has any interest in the topic knows that the ME3 rule this market for both sides - BA and TK are the only European carriers that currently offer services to Australia, and the latter is a technicality as it's got more in common with the ME3 than a European airline. NZ has completely abandoned the European market.

We have a healthy competitive market, and while QFg has about 30% of the market share, the next closest is SQ way down at 7.5% and NZ at 6.4%. Every other airline has a market share under 5%, EK - the JV partner of QF is next at 4.9%, followed by VA. Most of the market is taken up by airlines with individually small shares - and I think that's a sign of a healthy market.

 

[SYD]

You seem to scatter this same post in various threads across AFF, despite many people showing flaws with your selective statements.

Cherry picking the Australia-European market stat is just ignorant, as everybody who has any interest in the topic knows that the ME3 rule this market for both sides - BA and TK are the only European carriers that currently offer services to Australia, and the latter is a technicality as it's got more in common with the ME3 than a European airline. NZ has completely abandoned the European market.

We have a healthy competitive market, and while QFg has about 30% of the market share, the next closest is SQ way down at 7.5% and NZ at 6.4%. Every other airline has a market share under 5%, EK - the JV partner of QF is next at 4.9%, followed by VA. Most of the market is taken up by airlines with individually small shares - and I think that's a sign of a healthy market.

Also looking east, the transpacific market is huge for QF (has been for years).

 

[Melburnian1]

Also looking east, the transpacific market is huge for QF (has been for years).

At least between Australia and the USA, the transPacific market is a declining one.

In January 2020 prior to COVID, QFi carried 135,000 passengers to/or from USA. In January 2026, this declined to 97,000.

In January 2026, the four USA airlines of American, Delta, Hawaiian (Alaska) and United carried about 167,000 passengers, so once again, passengers prefer foreign airlines.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

At least between Australia and the USA, the transPacific market is a declining one.

In January 2020 prior to COVID, QFi carried 135,000 passengers to/or from USA. In January 2026, this declined to 97,000.

In January 2026, the four USA airlines of American, Delta, Hawaiian (Alaska) and United carried about 167,000 passengers, so once again, passengers prefer foreign airlines.

The analysis is not on necessarily the pure number of passengers, but the yield.

That’s where Qantas excels, maximising profit.

You’ve cut the numbers one way and said more pax prefer foreign airlines. But the other way to
Look at it is that more passengers fly Qantas than any other airline! )it takes all four of them combined to beat QF)

 

[justinbrett]

At least between Australia and the USA, the transPacific market is a declining one.

In January 2020 prior to COVID, QFi carried 135,000 passengers to/or from USA. In January 2026, this declined to 97,000.

In January 2026, the four USA airlines of American, Delta, Hawaiian (Alaska) and United carried about 167,000 passengers, so once again, passengers prefer foreign airlines.

Once again, an irrelevant selective statement.

81% of Australians prefer cars not made by Toyota. A stupid statement, because Toyota is far and away the most popular car brand in Australia. Just because a company doesn’t have 50% market share doesn’t make it unsuccessful. It would actually be a sign of a very unhealthy market to have that many competitors with one having the outright majority.

Same for the North American market. For US/Canada, QF has more than UA which is #2 and at least 3x anyone else. That’s not even including the fact that AA is in a JV with QF, so the two should be grouped together.

It’s not even a matter of preference, as QF doesn’t have enough capacity to freely add seats when the market is there, they had 747s before Covid which meant their IS routes had much more capacity. Their JFK route is full of pax ex AKL which don’t get counted in the Australian stats. Things will catch up as their fleet transition stabilises.

If anything - UA launched so many services to Australia I think at one point they had more capacity than QF, yet now they’ve scaled right back. Many reports of wide empty UA flights. So that’s probably a good idea of true pax preference.

 

[elanshin]

QFi often isn't "doing very well'.

On routes where there's other carriers, often QFi's market share is smaller than its rivals.

The important SYD and MEL to SIN routes are cases in point. SQ (and subsidiary TR) blitz QFi and JQi in frequencies and number of passengers carried.

QFi and JQi don't fly to Malaysia, and there are no nonstop Qantas group flights ex MEL to the extremely busy MNL airport in Philippines.

Similarly, when fully operating, the ME3 carry far more passengers out of Australia to Europe than QFi.

Nor does QFi fly to a central European gateway such as FRA. QFi's flights to CDG and FCO are not even daily.

Two thirds of passengers departing Australia do not use QFi or JQi. The market is sovereign and it has a clear preference for foreign airlines despite the QF group's home ground advantage.

I dont know if its a favouritism for SQ (or other airlines) or frequency/ capacity (or lack of) from QF.

I legitimately wonder if QF doesn't have a fleet shortage problem and can run a lot of flights what their actual numbers they can run would look like.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

I've run this page through AI and Melburnian1 - it says you are not being objective.

When a poster copies and pastes the exact same flawed, easily debunked statistics across multiple threads just to take a swipe at the flying kangaroo, it shifts from constructive criticism to a personal crusade.

 

[justinbrett]

Actually now I think about it, using Jan stats to compare US travel is very misleading, as the US carriers have seasonal services and a lot of that demand is ex-USA.

For July 2025, it’s almost an even 50/50.