Qantas Project Sunrise goes ahead, 12 new A350-1000s ordered

[levelnine]

They could of course downguage the flight to suit a smaller market and even originate it in BNE.

Indeed, I think that will be the first step.

 

[Doddler]

I believe that once Western Sydney airport opens the 5am-6am slots at Sydney will be cancelled as the curfew will become a hard 6am curfew with no landings before then. On the basis that WSI will be 24 hours and if you want to land before 6am you can do it there.

That would be quite a move for a Qantas Premium - in some ways, *the Premium* - route.

 

[dajop]

So feasibly they could retain one evening slot for an A380 to Sydney, one for a Sunrise flight to Melbourne, one for QF10 to Perth, and use their midday slot for the Sunrise flight to Sydney.

Do they have three evening slots? Going back to the days when they used to fly via SIN x 2, BKK and HKG connections to LHR, QF2(BKK/SYD) and QF10 (SIN/MEL) used to depart in the evening, whilst QF30 (HKG/MEL) and QF32 (SIN/SYD) used to depart around midday.

But who knows, they might to deals with BA around timing when taking back the 2 slots currently leased to them.

 

[elanshin]

The thing is, the one-stop works quite well with their existing LHR evening takeoff slots but a direct flight doesn't because of the Sydney curfew. Hence the need to swap a slot with QF10. A direct flight to Melbourne wouldn't be constrained in the same way. So feasibly they could retain one evening slot for an A380 to Sydney, one for a Sunrise flight to Melbourne, one for QF10 to Perth, and use their midday slot for the Sunrise flight to Sydney.
Maybe having A350ULRs arriving/departing LHR at different times would help with ground turnarounds as they could be swapped (e.g. SYD-LHR-MEL and MEL-LHR-SYD), but that's too complicated for my brain!

The other thing is we don't know how BA QF will negotiate the slot return. Is it the original slots or does QF ask BA to trade other slots.

When LHR slots are in play a lot of things can be done to make your flagship routes work.

 

[justinbrett]

Do they have three evening slots? Going back to the days when they used to fly via SIN x 2, BKK and HKG connections to LHR, QF2(BKK/SYD) and QF10 (SIN/MEL) used to depart in the evening, whilst QF30 (HKG/MEL) and QF32 (SIN/SYD) used to depart around midday.

But who knows, they might to deals with BA around timing when taking back the 2 slots currently leased to them.

Evening slots are the lowest value, so if that’s what QF needs should be easy to trade. The morning slots are the most valuable.

 

[SYD]

The other thing is we don't know how BA QF will negotiate the slot return. Is it the original slots or does QF ask BA to trade other slots.

When LHR slots are in play a lot of things can be done to make your flagship routes work.

Not to mention the Heathrow expansion and new slots (one day). But even those will come with a cost.

Riyadh Air plots Heathrow expansion

The Saudi Arabian start-up may need to pay over £200m to compete for airline slots

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[Himeno]

Do they have three evening slots? Going back to the days when they used to fly via SIN x 2, BKK and HKG connections to LHR, QF2(BKK/SYD) and QF10 (SIN/MEL) used to depart in the evening, whilst QF30 (HKG/MEL) and QF32 (SIN/SYD) used to depart around midday.

But who knows, they might to deals with BA around timing when taking back the 2 slots currently leased to them.

They currently have, including the slot pairs leased to BA, 2x morning arrivals, 2x lunch departures, 2x lunch arrivals and 2x evening departures. I think at one point they had a 5th pair, but that's long gone.

They could arrange a slot swap when they are talking to BA about the timing of the leased slots being returned.

 

[RSD]

Has Qantas made any mention of operating from WSI?

 

[Himeno]

Has Qantas made any mention of operating from WSI?

They've signed agreements for 5 QF and 10 JQ aircraft to be based there within a year of opening.
Qantas Freight have also signed agreements to base A321F and A330F there.

They have stated flights from WSI to OOL, BNE and MEL. Nothing else said since those releases.

 

[Doddler]

Has Qantas made any mention of operating from WSI?

No, and in direct response to a question a few days ago of which airport they'd be operating the Sunrise LHR flight from, Qantas Facebook page said Kingsford Smith. I think we can take that as pretty definitive.

 

[mviy]

All I want is a return of sale return fares for $7-8k on QF to LHR in J like pre-COVID

Every time I’ve looked recently they have been way above that

 

[jase05]

Qantas Freight have also signed agreements to base A321F and A330F there.

Yes, the aim is for it to eventually become our major freight hub
I suspect any meaningful QFi flights would be some years off though

 

[dajop]

No, and in direct response to a question a few days ago of which airport they'd be operating the Sunrise LHR flight from, Qantas Facebook page said Kingsford Smith. I think we can take that as pretty definitive.

I think even without them stating it, we could assume they wouldn't as it would defy logic to operate sunrise to/from WSI. In aiming to command a premium for non-stop I don't think it would be in any plans to dump passengers 90 minutes from the city in normal scheduled operations. Would rather defeat the purpose of the flight.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Qantas has said that PER-LHR is among the airline's best performing routes, so I'm not sure why you'd sacrifice it over SIN-LHR when SIN-LHR currently requires the premium traffic from SYD/MEL, which will be stolen by Sunrise.

Qantas' competitive advantage is the ability to offer non-stop routes. It is no surprise that's what makes it the most money. Indeed, they said as much in their 2025 Annual Report: 'Long-haul point-to-point markets continue to provide portfolio-leading earnings outcomes' (p 22).

It’s just a thought bubble… but as I mentioned above, the availability of premium seats is an important part of the FF program. The A380 has those in large numbers, the 787 does not.

The PER-LHR may be one of the best performing routes… but if premium traffic can fly non-stop from SYD and MEL?

You could maintain the a380 with connecting traffic from a wide number of Australian cities, and offer some of those premium seats to keep FFers engaged. Sure, the business exec may fly the a350 non-stop when work’s paying, but when they’re taking the family and want two or three seats in business class released?

You’d then free up two 787s which could complete 2 returns a day to Asia.