Qantas boss Alan Joyce daring to dream non-stop

Alan Joyce believes super-long-haul planes will drive the biggest shake-up of the Qantas network in its history.

Alan Joyce with some Qantas pilots in Sydney yesterday. Picture: John Feder.

They have run different airlines in remarkably different eras, in opposite corners of the globe.

But legendary Pan Am boss Juan Trippe and Qantas chief Alan Joyce now have one important thing in common: they have both demanded the world’s biggest aircraft manufacturer do what many once thought was impossible.

In the case of Trippe, his decision to order 25 of the then unbuilt first models of the Boeing 747 aircraft in the mid-1960s, one of his last big decisions as Pan Am’s leader, was one of the largest ever gambles in global aviation.

History shows it paid off in ­spades, even if it wasn’t enough to save the airline from eventual collapse.

For Joyce, his move to challenge Boeing and European rival plane-maker Airbus to stretch the maximum flight distance of their next generation of super-long-haul planes will also define what is likely to be the final chapter of his time at Qantas. It will be a chapter that uses technology to drive what Joyce believes will be the biggest shake-up of the Qantas network in the 97-year-old carrier’s history.

“It would be absolutely, probably the biggest strategic change in aircraft that we’ve ever had, which will make a big difference to the network,” Joyce told The Weekend Australian yesterday.

“But this has the opportunity to change our North American, our European, our South American and our African networks all in one go. And I think that would be probably the biggest, for certainly the long-range routes, that we’ve ever seen in our history.”

It isn’t the first time Qantas has dared Boeing. And in the past the Seattle-based manufacturer has delivered. For example, it developed the Boeing 747SP aircraft specifically for Qantas to fly between Australian ports and Wellington, New Zealand in the early 1980s.

Later, the development of the 747ER aircraft for Qantas allowed it to fly between Melbourne and the US for the first time.

This time the challenge also involves Airbus, which will have the A350-900 ULR in service next year for ultra-long-range flights of up to 20 hours.

Joyce personally threw down the challenge to Airbus chief executive Thomas Enders in a letter sent on Wednesday, after having waxed lyrically about the issue on and off publicly for the past 12 months.

“Airbus has shown the imagination, commitment and capability for ultra-long haul with its A350ULR. And in the spirit of opening up new frontiers, we’d like to challenge you to extend the range of this aircraft to make missions like Sydney-New York and Sydney-London a possibility,” Joyce said in his letter.

The same letter was sent to Boeing after Joyce raised the issue in June, with the group’s new airplanes boss Kevin McAllister, at the International Air Transportation Association’s annual general meeting at Cancun in Mexico.

“We’ve given this same challenge to Boeing with the 777X,” Joyce’s Airbus letter continued.

“Over the next 12 months we would like to work independently with both companies on performance and design parameters that would deliver an aircraft with the right range and the right economics for Qantas to make this vision a reality.”

He says the reception so far from both manufacturers has been positive. “It’s been very good. What both of them now realise is that Qantas is extremely serious about this. And we want to make sure we engage openly with both sides and go through a process that is defined with them,” he says, noting it will take another two years to confirm if the planes can be delivered by 2022.

“The reaction I have got from both is that they are willing to work on this.’’

Both manufacturers publicly backed Joyce’s view yesterday.

While some analysts have questioned whether passengers would want to spend 17 hours and more in the sky without a stop, Joyce said history shows that technology constantly changes people’s attitudes to long-haul flying.

“Every time the technology has allowed you to take that leap, you do get a reaction of people saying ‘We’ll never do that’. I remember when we looked at our operation across the Pacific direct, it used to go through Honolulu and Noumea, and people, when we said we were going to do that, said, ‘you couldn’t be on an aircraft for 13 hours, that’s too long’.

“People will then find the benefit you get out of this. A flight to London direct will save you four hours. A flight to London direct will allow you, we believe, to have better sleep on board and less disruption, will allow you to watch your movies and take out the stress of connecting at the airport, which can be stressful for a lot of people. We think when people experience that they will love it and they will stick with it.”

While some have also questioned the proposition of direct flights from Perth to London, Joyce says “the early forward bookings on that are extremely strong”.

The development comes as Qantas has been retiring its older 747s, as it gets ready to take possession of new 787 Dreamliner aircraft.

A 747 was retired to the Mojave Desert in California last month, while another will leave the fleet in mid-2018. Qantas is taking possession of Dreamliner 787s-9s starting from October and a total of five older jumbos will be retired to make way for them.

All of the 747s are expected to be retired by the early 2020s, which is when Qantas wants the new ultra-long-range Boeing 777X and long-range version of the Airbus A350 to be able to fly the direct routes from Australia’s east coast to New York and London.

The development of the new planes will be aided by the work Qantas has been doing using cloud computing to process up to 10 years’ worth of weather patterns, to find the fastest flight paths that use the least fuel.

In June Qantas also announced a research partnership with the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre to examine ways to reduce jet-lag on long-haul flights, which will be a critical part of its network rethink.

The study’s first two participants are model Jesinta Campbell and Australian Rugby Sevens captain Ed Jenkins, and the airline has invited some of its frequent flyers to be involved in the trials.

Joyce was at the university a week ago to check on the progress of the work with its Chancellor and former QBE chairman Belinda Hutchinson, who is a big backer of the project.

He uses the example of using lighting on a 787 aircraft — the most advanced in history — in a way that has never been done before.

“Nobody has used science to look at what stage of flights in geographic locations you use lighting which deals with jet lag,” he says.

Celebrity chef Neil Perry is also looking at the herbs and spices added to food and how they affect the circadian rhythms that drive the body’s sleep patterns.

In the past airlines have chosen when they serve meals according to the location of a plane on the globe, but Perry’s work could lead to a radical rethink of when it is best to serve food.

And Joyce reveals the research has led to one innovation that could be part of the passenger experience for the inaugural Perth to London flights next year — in, of all places, the lounge showers at Perth airport.

“When people fly on the Perth to London route the best way to avoid jet lag is to stay awake for the first few hours of the flight,’’ he says. “So our lighting expert has discovered that putting a blue light in the showers resets the body’s circadian rhythms so you can stay awake on the plane.

“In the shower you might have the option of pressing a button on the wall to get that blue light.”