Qantas Leasing Finnair A330s for Singapore, Bangkok Flights

Helsinki, Finland - May 24, 2018: Finnair Airbus A330 airplane taking off at Helsinki airport. Airbus is a European aircraft manufacturer based in Toulouse, France.
Finnair will fly Airbus A330-300s for Qantas. Photo: Adobe Stock.

If you’re flying Qantas to Singapore or Bangkok, you could soon find yourself on a Finnair aircraft!

From next Sunday, one of Qantas’ two daily Sydney-Singapore flights will be operated by Finnair. From 31 March 2024, Finnair will also operate Qantas’ Sydney-Bangkok service.

To make this happen, Qantas will wet lease two Airbus A330-300 planes from its Oneworld partner Finnair.

Passengers will continue to check-in with Qantas and receive Qantas food, drinks and amenities on board. As the flights will have “QF” flight numbers, full Qantas points and status credits will continue to be earned.

But the physical planes will be refurbished Finnair A330s, fitted with Finnair’s new Economy, Premium Economy and Business Class seats. They will be staffed by Finnair pilots and cabin crew.

This agreement will be in place for two years. After that time, Qantas pilots and cabin crew will operate the two leased Finnair aircraft for up to three more years under a “dry lease” setup.

It’s not uncommon for airlines to use a wet lease arrangement if they need more planes to operate their full schedule. Air New Zealand, for example, will shortly use a leased Cathay Pacific Boeing 777 on its Melbourne-Auckland and Auckland-Houston routes.

What it’s like on Finnair’s Airbus A330-300

Finnair’s reconfigured Airbus A330-330s feature 28 “AirLounge” Business Class seats. This is Finnair’s newest Business Class product and it has received excellent reviews. Although the seat doesn’t have a recline function, you can use the space as a fully lie-flat bed and there’s direct aisle access from every seat.

New Finnair Business Class seat
Finnair’s new Business Class seat. Photo: Finnair.

There are three rows of Premium Economy on Finnair’s A330-300, with a seat design similar to Qantas Premium Economy. Qantas will sell these seats as Premium Economy, with full Qantas Premium Economy service provided.

Finnair's new Premium Economy seat
Finnair’s new Premium Economy seat. Photo: Finnair.

There are also 230 Economy seats with the same 2-4-2 layout as the Qantas A330.

Which flights will be operated by Finnair for Qantas?

From 29 October 2023, Finnair will take over the current QF81/82 service between Sydney and Singapore. These daily flights will have different flight numbers to clearly distinguish them from the usual Qantas-operated flights.

Here’s the schedule as of November 2023:

  • QF291 Sydney 12:30 – Singapore 17:50
  • QF292 Singapore 20:05 – Sydney 07:10 (+1 day)

Then, from 31 March 2024, Qantas will wet lease a second Finnair A330 to operate the current QF23/24 Sydney-Bangkok service. This will be replaced with:

  • QF295 Sydney 10:50 – Bangkok 16:40
  • QF296 Bangkok 18:10 – Sydney 06:25 (+1 day)

Seats remain available to book on the Qantas website. There are even some Classic Flight Reward seats available on Finnair-operated Qantas services.

QF291 award availability on the Qantas website
You can redeem Qantas points on Qantas’ Finnair-operated flights. Screenshot from the Qantas website.

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Qantas will continue to operate the daily QF1 and QF2 services between Sydney and Singapore (which continues to London). Passengers with existing bookings on QF81 or QF82 may request to move to QF1 or QF2 if they want to remain on a Qantas aircraft.

From 31 March 2024, Qantas will also add a fifteenth weekly Sydney-Singapore service. QF83 will fly from Sydney to Singapore on Sunday afternoons, while QF84 will add an extra overnight flight from Singapore to Sydney on Friday evenings.

This is a win-win for Qantas and Finnair

With strong demand for international flights, this arrangement allows Qantas to redeploy two wide-body aircraft onto other international routes such as Sydney-Shanghai, which restarts later this week. It’s also great for Finnair because the loss of Russian airspace has left the Helsinki-based carrier with surplus A330s.

The events of the past few years (COVID-19 and the Ukraine war) have forced Finnair to radically reinvent its business model. The Finnish national carrier has lost its competitive advantage of offering fast flight times from Europe to Asia (using Russian airspace). In fact, its A330s no longer have the range to fly from Helsinki to some destinations in northern Asia due to the longer flight paths required.

Finnair advertisement - "Fly the short northern route"
A Finnair advertisement from pre-COVID times. Sadly, the “northern route” is no longer so short.

In recent years, Finnair has redeployed some of its spare A330s onto US routes. It also experimented with opening a Stockholm base and operating flights from various Scandinavian cities to Doha to assist another Oneworld partner, Qatar Airways. Finnair says that this new long-term agreement with Qantas “concludes the optimisation of Finnair’s fleet following the Russian airspace closure”.

It’s also a win for Qantas’ Business Class passengers, who will get to enjoy Finnair’s excellent Business Class product from Sydney to Singapore and Bangkok! And it results in the addition of Premium Economy seating on these routes. Finnair’s A330 Economy product is relatively similar to Qantas, so it’s a neutral change for Economy passengers.

But not everyone is thrilled. Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA) President Tony Lucas described this as an “appalling decision to outsource Australian jobs”.

“It beggars belief that Qantas is outsourcing the Spirit of Australia while simultaneously converting two of our own A330 passenger aircraft into freighters,” Lucas said.

How Finnair will make this work operationally

Finnair already operates flights from its Helsinki hub to both Singapore and Bangkok. It also has outsourced cabin crew bases in Singapore and Bangkok, which will provide flight attendants for these Qantas services.

Two dedicated Finnair A330-300 aircraft will be used to operate these Qantas flights. They will fly back and forth between Sydney and Singapore and Bangkok, with maintenance completed in Australia. Although they will retain their original Finnair seats, they will have Qantas magazines in the seat pockets and other small touches to align the travel experience more closely to the usual Qantas experience.

The pilots will be Helsinki-based. After operating a regularly scheduled Finnair flight from Helsinki to Singapore or Bangkok and resting for 1-2 nights, Finnair pilots will fly to Sydney operating on behalf of Qantas. They’ll then return to base in Helsinki using the same work pattern.

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.
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That's a great news, looking forward the industry is back to 100%+ pre-covid.

"Tickets for the new services will be progressively available for sale from today at qantas.com and through travel agents. Customers who have already booked on flights with schedule changes will be contacted directly in the coming days."

So another round of re-ticketing issue expected in the coming weeks :D

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Source, please.

QF newsroom --> QANTAS BOOSTS INTERNATIONAL NETWORK: RESTORING CAPACITY, ADDING MORE AIRCRAFT, LAUNCHING NEW ROUTES

<snip>
The Finnair A330 aircraft will operate selected Qantas flights between Sydney and Singapore from late October and all flights between Sydney and Bangkok from late March 2024, freeing up Qantas aircraft and crew to boost flying elsewhere. For the first two-and-a-half years of this agreement, flights will be operated by Finnair pilots and cabin crew, with customers continuing to receive Qantas’ inflight food and beverage service, amenities, inflight entertainment and baggage allowance. From late 2025, two Finnair A330s will be dry leased, operating for up to three years with Qantas pilots and cabin crew, creating new jobs and further promotional opportunities within Qantas
<snip>

In a small E190 ! Little surprised BNE-WLG is not OOL-WLG

Brisbane – Wellington New route to operate daily with E190 aircraft.
Brisbane – Honiara, Solomon Islands New route to operate three days per week with E190 aircraft.

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click to expand...

With the older business cabin?

Should have kept the two other A330s instead of disposing of them

Reply 1 Like

Interesting with the wel lease arrangement and then the dry lease arrangement a few years after.

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Interesting with the wel lease arrangement and then the dry lease arrangement a few years after.

Indeed. Committing 5.5 years for an older aircraft.
Seat map -->Finnair Airbus A330 - aeroLOPA | Detailed aircraft seat plans

Finnair normally operates a fleet of eight Airbus A330-300 aircraft on services linking Helsinki with North America and Asia. There are two configurations: the 45J 218M and the 28J 21W 230M replacement launched in 2022

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Interesting with the wel lease arrangement and then the dry lease arrangement a few years after.

Yes, Finnair seem to be doing quite a bit of leasing and operating for others? But it's a long way from home for their crews.

Edit: duh, they're probably based in Asia, I didn't really think that through.

Reply 3 Likes

Yes, Finnair seem to be doing quite a bit of leasing and operating for others? But it's a long way from home for their crews.

Edit: duh, they're probably based in Asia, I didn't really think that through.

Also I just read that when the 'dry lease' arrangement comes in the aircraft will then be painted in a Qantas livery and then under the Qantas AOC.
I think Qantas wanted the dry lease from day one, but finnair wanted their crew to operate for the first two or so years.

Flight numbers will be:
• QF291, Sydney-Singapore
• QF292, Singapore-Sydney
• QF295, Sydney-Bangkok
• QF296, Bangkok-Syd

Also this:
The aircraft being used under these leasing arrangements have been reconfigured in the past year with latest-
generation onboard product - new seats, inflight entertainment (IFE), lavatories and other cabin features were
fitted as part of the reconfiguration program.
The inflight food and beverage offering will be provided by Qantas. Finnair crew will undergo Qantas service
training and operational support will be in place to support onboard service delivery. Pillows, blankets, amenity
kits and IFE content would also be provided by Qantas.

Reply 3 Likes

click to expand...

Interesting to see that QF moves both HND slots out of SYD. I wonder what'll happen to the subsidised arrangements out of BNE and MEL with their state Aviation Investment Funds since they're moving those flights back to NRT, although both are now daily rather than the split arrangement out of HND.

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Flights to Singapore and Tokyo from Sydney at least are available to purchase. The new QF59 will depart at 12.20pm and arrive 20.15 local time before QF60 leaves at 22.00 (the exact same time as QF26).

Bit disappointing that Qantas didn't use the opportunity to run a day flight from Haneda to Sydney instead of leaving QF25/26 parked all day.

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