Qantas unveils Boeing 787 Dreamliner route

The first international route for the new ultra-long haul aircraft has been revealed.

Qantas has unveiled the route of its new Boeing 787 Dreamliners.

Melbourne to Los Angeles has been unveiled as the first route that Qantas will fly its brand-new Boeing 787 Dreamliners on, with the first flights scheduled to head over the Pacific in December next year.

Melbourne beat out airports in Sydney and Brisbane to secure the first flight on the new ultra-long haul aircraft.

The inaugural flight will launch on December 15 but is subject to final government and regulatory approval.

Operating six times per week, the Dreamliner will replace the Boeing 747 service that currently operates on this route alongside the A380. The airline plans to use the fuel-efficient twin-engined jets to replace some of the routes that its 747 fleet has flown.

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

The new Dreamliners will feature 236 passengers across Business, Premium Economy and Economy cabins in a layout that Qantas says has been designed to maximise comfort for the longer distances the 787-9 is expected to fly.

Qantas International CEO Gareth Evans said the airline would work with Visit Victoria on joint marketing campaigns to highlight what Victoria and the Qantas Dreamliner have to offer.

The unveiling of the Melbourne route comes after Qantas this week settled a long-running dispute with Perth Airport over who would pay for the terminal upgrades to launch a non-stop direct flight from Perth to London. That service will launch in March 2018.

With the Perth-London and Melbourne-LA routes now finalised, the next probable routes for Qantas’s Dreamliner fleet are likely to be Sydney-Chicago or Brisbane-Dallas.

The launch of the 787 on the Melbourne-LA route will take the total number of Qantas services on that leg from nine to 13 return flights per week.

As the aircraft replaces a larger, 364-seat 747 that operates twice a week, Qantas will increase its capacity on that route by about 1400 seats in total.

Fares will be on sale from Christmas Day 2016.