Qantas has announced that it will switch from Boeing 747-400 aircraft to 787 Dreamliner jets and Airbus A380s on all of its routes between Australia and the US mainland. Starting on December 4th, the carrier will be ending Boeing 747 operations on its Sydney to San Fransisco route, which currently is its last Boeing 747 route to the US mainland.
At the moment, Qantas operates the Dreamliner to New York, Hong Kong, San Fransisco, London and Los Angeles. In addition to the Sydney-San Francisco route, its four times weekly service from Melbourne to the Californian city is already operated by Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. Therefore, all Qantas flights to San Francisco will be operated by 787 jets in the future. However, the Australian flag-carrier will continue to deploy Boeing 747-400 aircraft on its Sydney-Honolulu route.
Qantas currently has eight Boeing 787s in its fleet with an additional six on order. These aircraft are due to begin delivery in October 2019, and all aircraft should be arrived by mid-2020. Meanwhile, the airline continues to retire its Boeing 747-400s and plans to transition its fleet over to the next generation Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
In addition to the Boeing 747 and 787 airplanes, Australia’s largest carrier operates Airbus A330 and A380 wide-body jets. Boeing 737-800s are also part of its fleet.
Australia-based contributor for International Flight Network.
