Qantas' New A321XLR

[HS-TQE]

MNL is slot restricted. QF managed to expand to BNE-MNL using less than ideal slots in MNL initially

A330 is virtually their only choice if freight loads especially the Balikbayan market is strong between Australia and Philippines.

 

[NZflygirl]

Think the 321s will be used for peak time golden triangle, East cost-PER routes (freeing up any remaining A330s used there), and East Coast-NZ.

Internationally may be used to NAN (peak times where extra capacity helpful), likely to DPS, perhaps MNL (depending on freight loads and whether that needs an A330) as could do 2xA321s rather than 1xA330 and improve capacity and frequency, and consolidate use on existing routes before "opening up new routes".

They'll largely be used as a capacity +/- frequency boost, not for the extreme of range capability (there maybe one or two niche routes for this, but choice of the XLR is for the overall payload capacity, not range).

I would LOOOOOOOVE this if this happens. Comfy plane transcon and to NZ? I'm in!