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Apr 10, 2010
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Qantas to boost Heathrow – Melbourne A380 flights

Qantas is to boost Airbus A380 flights from Melbourne to Heathrow as it expands its fleet of the world’s largest passenger plane. The airline intends to operate daily A380 flights to London via Singapore by March 2011, it said in a statement today.

The expansion is tied to the delivery of four A380s, which will raise Qantas’s fleet to 10. The airline is due to receive its seventh A380 in the fourth quarter, which will enable it to raise the Sydney-to-London superjumbo service to daily. A spokesman said Qantas is boosting A380 operations as a rebounding global economy revives international travel and as Airbus moves ahead with production of the plane following delays.

Qantas will also expand code sharing arrangements with British Airways to cover six additional European cities, including Rome, Milan and Budapest.

Source
 
Some comment on another forum that 17 hours on an aircraft is too much for many people. I'd agree in principle but there are already routes that are not much shorter than this in time.

I fly each year to Melbourne from the UK and the leg between Dubai and Melbourne usually takes between 13 and 14 hours. That's long enough, so is another two or three hours that much more of a problem, given that you do the journey in one go rather than changing aircraft or stopping en route when the overall journey time is longer?

Flying to Melbourne as I do I doubt that I'd consider this long sector because I'd still have to get to Melbourne which is three hours from Perth by air. However, if my destination was Perth I'd seriously consider it.
 
One of my now ex-coworkers has family in Perth so when i heard about a potential non-stop route I mentioned it to him but it was the total time on board that he didn't like so would continue to take the MAN-DXB-PER routing (A380 all the way in around 21 hours). I know the Western Australian governor has called it a game-changer but unless you are in the Perth area going to the London area, it appears to better to continue with the current journey set-up.
 
I've never experienced a flight longer than 4 and a half hours but I've always felt that that was long enough. From a working perspective, an eight hour day for the crew is more than enough and even with a duel crew assuming that's what Qantas would need to do would still be unacceptably tiring as I can't imagine proper rest is achievable whilst on board?
 
17 hours is long! Hopefully they would allow some extra legroom on such a long flight but i doubt it. Longest flight i've been on is 10 and a half hours LAX-AMS. I have done SFO-AMS in a KLM 747 400 and a 787 9 and the dreamliner is more comfortable and quieter but not sure about spending 17 hours in one!
 
A report I 've seen states 236 passengers on the B789 so given that that is not much different to a B757 200 I'd suggest there must be a reasonable amount of room on board?
 
Having flown to Australia a number of years ago, its quite amazing & amusing the fact that the flight left Monday evening (local time) and didn't arrive in Sydney until Wednesday morning (local time).

However, after having flown 12+ hrs from Heathrow to Singapore, its rather daunting to then board another 7hr flight to Sydney. Given the option to do the whole trip in one flight, I'd rather take the non-stop flight than the one via somewhere.
 
From Qantas wikipedia page. 787 9 configuration 42 business class, 28 Premium economy and 166 Economy class total passengers 236. Premium economy seat pitch ranges between 38 inch to 42 inch with a width of 19 and a half inch in a 2-3-2 configuration. Economy seat pitch is usually 32 inch and seat width ranges between 17 to 17 and a half inch in a 3-3-3 configuration. It does sound like compared to other airlines that fly the same aircraft there will be more legroom.
 
Having flown to Australia a number of years ago, its quite amazing & amusing the fact that the flight left Monday evening (local time) and didn't arrive in Sydney until Wednesday morning (local time).

However, after having flown 12+ hrs from Heathrow to Singapore, its rather daunting to then board another 7hr flight to Sydney. Given the option to do the whole trip in one flight, I'd rather take the non-stop flight than the one via somewhere.
I find flying from the UK to Oz more of challenge to the body than Oz-UK.

Last month for example, and it's typical of our previous journeys 'Down Under', we left London mid evening on a Tuesday. Just over six hour later we landed at Dubai at around 0700 Dubai time (0300 UK time) on Wednesday morning.

After around three hours on the ground at Dubai we changed aircraft and took off around 1000 Dubai time on the Wednesday morning to land 13 hours later in Oz at 0600 Melbourne time on Thursday morning. Wednesday is really lost completely because you are on the aircraft and because of time zones it's contracted in time anyway.

Coming back is easier as the flight leaves MEL at 2230 on, say, Monday and flies 13-14 hours completely in the dark to land at Dubai around 0500 Dubai time on Tuesday. After under three hours on the ground the next flight departs Dubai just before 0800 hours Dubai time on Tuesday to land London just before midday on Tuesday.

A non-stop flight would obviate the need for between two and three hours on the ground at Dubai to change aircraft.

As I said in my previous, post if I was flying to Perth I'd seriously consider the non-stop option as the overall journey time would be shorter than travelling via Dubai (or any other ME or Far East hub) and 17 hours is only a little more irksome than the 13-14 hours that are endured already.
 
Its looking like the Perth to Heathrow route will make use of the current Melbourne to Heathrow (via Dubai) slot.

In other words, instead of an A380 flying Melbourne - Dubai - Heathrow, it will be a B787 flying Melbourne - Perth - Heathrow.
 
VH-ZND is estimated to arrive at LHR tomorrow between 04:00 and 05:00

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My wife and I are flying to Perth in November. We go most years to visit family and usually transit via Melbourne. We looked at numerous options in recent weeks and the new non-stop flight was one. In the end we decided against it because, although we don't like DXB our usual change airport, we felt that 16-17 hours without a break was too much.
 
My wife and I are flying to Perth in November. We go most years to visit family and usually transit via Melbourne. We looked at numerous options in recent weeks and the new non-stop flight was one. In the end we decided against it because, although we don't like DXB our usual change airport, we felt that 16-17 hours without a break was too much.
Just curious but did you look at CWL?
And currently the flight is over Dubai.
 
Just curious but did you look at CWL?
And currently the flight is over Dubai.
No we didn't but it was a serous contender though, and at one point we thought it would work for us. Our itinerary is a bit more complicated this time - into Perth and back from Melbourne with a one-way Qantas flight from PER to MEL (this sector will be my first time on a B787-9). We use a well-known high street long-haul travel specialist and the package they came up with from LHR with Emirates and its partner Qantas plus hotels was the best of the options for us in the end. It's quite a lot less expensive than booking direct with the airline on the Internet as we've found on previous occasions. We get a chauffeured car to/from LHR so accessing LHR isn't a problem.

The flight times on the days of travel that we wanted didn't fit in with Qatar's CWL departure dates. I think the same would have been the case had Qatar been flying from BRS on those dates and timings even though it's just down the road from us. I like to support local airports when I can but it's not always possible.
 
No we didn't but it was a serous contender though, and at one point we thought it would work for us. Our itinerary is a bit more complicated this time - into Perth and back from Melbourne with a one-way Qantas flight from PER to MEL (this sector will be my first time on a B787-9).
Which should be the aircraft returning from LHR as well. The 787 is a lovely aircraft i've flown on a KLM one out of SFO and it was nice and quiet.
The flight times on the days of travel that we wanted didn't fit in with Qatar's CWL departure dates. I think the same would have been the case had Qatar been flying from BRS on those dates and timings even though it's just down the road from us. I like to support local airports when I can but it's not always possible.
That is the advantage that LHR has over a lot of regional airports in the daily frequency and on a lot of the routes. Hopefully one day you'll get to use CWL. Enjoy your trip!
 
Thank you. LHR-PER and MEL-LHR both via DXB of course will be on Emirates A380s. It's just the internal PER-MEL on the Qantas B787-9.

I'd like to use Qatar at some point. They have an excellent reputation when it comes to customer satisfaction.
 

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