Qantas in talks on network reach of Dreamliner fleet

Qantas plans to use the fuel-efficient twin-engined jets to replace some of the routes that its 747 fleet has flown.

Allan Joyce says there will be a ‘luxurious’ seat configuration on the Dreamliners. Picture: Renee Nowytarger

Qantas has begun negotiations with governments and airports about where its incoming fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners will fly to when the airline takes delivery of the new aircraft next year.

Qantas has eight of the long-range 787-9 aircraft on order to replace its ageing 747 jumbo jets. The next-generation jets will join Qantas’s international fleet. Four will be delivered in the 2017-18 ­financial year and four more in the year after.

The airline plans to use the fuel-efficient twin-engined jets to replace some of the routes that its 747 fleet has flown but no final decisions have been made on where Qantas’s Dreamliner network will reach.

“We have the range for Sydney-Chicago, Melbourne-Dallas, Brisbane-Dallas and there’s the possibility of flying Perth to London,” Qantas chief Alan Joyce told reporters on the sidelines of the International Air Transport Association annual meeting in Dublin.

“They are all on the list but it depends on the support we get from the governments and airports to what network we will ­actually settle on. We are just starting to have that dialogue with airports and governments.”

Qantas is yet to reveal its choice of seating and cabin layout for the new aircraft.

Boeing’s 787-9s typically feature about 250 seats across business class, premium economy and economy but the final configurations vary between airlines.

Japan Airlines flies its long-haul 787s with 195 seats: 44 in ­business class, 35 in premium economy and 116 in economy. Air New Zealand, which also flies Dreamliners, has configured its 787s with 302 seats, to 18 in business class, 21 in premium economy and 263 in economy.

The configuration of Qantas’s Dreamliners has been a closely guarded secret, but Mr Joyce said it would have to be “luxurious”, given the long hauls it would fly.

“You’ll see a very luxurious configuration on these aircraft and that’s there because of the distance we’ll be flying,” he said.

“There’ll be a big business class, a big premium economy cabin and we’ll obviously be given some very good seat pitch for the economy seats given the lengths that we will be flying.”

Seat and cabin configurations can cause headaches for airlines and planemakers. At an Airbus event in Hamburg this week, the planemaker singled out its seat and cabin manufacturers as the cause of a slower than expected delivery rate of its aircraft to airlines this year.

But Qantas head of inter­national Gareth Evans said Qantas was confident its supplier would deliver its Dreamliner seats on time. “We are working with Thomson (out of Belfast), who designed and manufactured our A330 business class seat,” he said.

“Thompson are a newish but growing, high-quality supplier of seats who we are working with on the product for this aircraft. We are very confident about how our supply chain is going to work.”

Mr Joyce said should Qantas’s Dreamliners perform as expected, the airline would exercise some of its 15 purchase options and 30 purchase rights it holds with Boeing for additional aircraft.

“If we can demonstrate that we can make good money out of those eight (Dreamliners) then the next thing we will do is order the rest of them,” he said.

Mitchell Bingemann travelled to Dublin as a guest of Airbus and IATA.