SXDFC wrote:

Could an airline like Ryanair or any other airline that operates 50+ MAX with over 100 more on order cancel it’s remaining MAX, and sell off its current MAX for a NEO order? Has something like this ever been done before?

With Jetstar operating many Airbus aircraft, will they be assisting in training the Qantas crews on upcoming Airbus aircraft?

Boof02671 wrote:

LoganTheBogan wrote:

log0008 wrote:

Well well, I have had an interesting discussion with a very senior pilot in Qantas.

The XLR will not be able to operate anything longer than SYD-CGK. The problem - crew hours. Anything longer than 8 hours is going to be out of the window as the 321XLR has no crew rest facilities. This limits us to an absolute maximum 3500nm.

Generally I take what pilots and flight attendants say with a grain of salt. Not saying you or your sources are incorrect, however they often don't know any of the behind the scenes work involved in acquiring new aircraft and any new contractual terms that are being drafted.

Airbus has also proposed crew rest facilities which are proven elsewhere too.

At US Airways back in the day out 767s not 757s had crew rest areas and they used them for US to Europe and other international destinations.

They just block seats for them to use.

Rifitto wrote:

log0008 wrote:

Final question for some of you experts. What should we consider as a true range of the A321XLR in normal operations? I know its quote as 4600nm. For example, would SYD/MEL-PVG both at around 4300nm be a bit long?

The XLR is Basically a 321LR with a rear fixed fuel tank instead of the standard center tanks ,plus a tweaked flaps and icreased MTOW

so just take the longest flight LR is doing and give it an extra 60 min of fly time

Airbus specs give it a range of 7500 km (4000) but in reality it can't even do LIS-ORD which is only 6400 km (3470 nm)

rising it's MTOW by 4 tons and fuel capacity by 2.5 tons won't by magic give it +2000 km of range ,it's simply unrealistic
but it still remains capable and has no direct competitor

Boof02671 wrote:

LoganTheBogan wrote:

log0008 wrote:

Well well, I have had an interesting discussion with a very senior pilot in Qantas.

The XLR will not be able to operate anything longer than SYD-CGK. The problem - crew hours. Anything longer than 8 hours is going to be out of the window as the 321XLR has no crew rest facilities. This limits us to an absolute maximum 3500nm.

Generally I take what pilots and flight attendants say with a grain of salt. Not saying you or your sources are incorrect, however they often don't know any of the behind the scenes work involved in acquiring new aircraft and any new contractual terms that are being drafted.

Airbus has also proposed crew rest facilities which are proven elsewhere too.

At US Airways back in the day out 767s not 757s had crew rest areas and they used them for US to Europe and other international destinations.

They just block seats for them to use.

moa999 wrote:

The youngest 737s will still be around well into the 2030s

ClassicLover wrote:

RalXWB wrote:

moa999 wrote:

The youngest 737s will still be around well into the 2030s

Not if they exercise all of their options before that timeframe.

They won't, they'll likely do them gradually. Qantas retires aircraft at around 20 years, due to the way depreciation works in Australia. If they could depreciate their aircraft faster (like other airlines are permitted to do under local laws), they would retire them faster.

Eight of the Boeing 737-800s came in 2017-2018, meaning a 2037-2038 retirement. 29 arrived 2011-2014, meaning 2031-2034 retirements. Five came in 2008, so 2028. All the rest were 2002-2006, which will be replaced first.

With only eight coming late in the piece, you might see them retired with the 2031-2034 tranche, but it still means we will see the 737s in service for at least 8 more years until the 2030s start.

DartHerald wrote:

There must be a point, though, where the pool of pilots and mechanics etc. needed to maintain a small fleet of 737-800 of whatever age becomes uneconomical when all else is airbus and that might be before the airframe reaches the end of its economic life.

lightsaber wrote:

When Delta announced just over a year ago they were retiring the 717s, that doomed the type.
https://airwaysmag.com/airlines/delta-a ... 767-300er/

Delta is only keeping 54 of the 717s in service.
https://airwaysmag.com/airlines/delta-a ... 767-300er/

Delta used to have a fleet of 91 of the 717s:
https://airwaysmag.com/airlines/delta-t ... 717-fleet/

With a retirement date about 5 years after the announcement, that implies no more heavy maintenance visits for the type sometime shortly after the announcement; only C-checks should be expected as there are plenty of frames to cycle through to maintain approximately 54 flying. Considering there are only 39 other 717s flying, that leaves no economy of scale for parts and maintenance.
https://www.airfleets.net/exploit/production-b717.htm

Honestly, with only 156 built, the type was always limping along on parts support with AirTran and later Delta supporting the type through volume. THe 2nd and above link imply only 93 flying. That is brutal on parts support cost if you even just need to rebuild parts (forget the cost of buying new parts, that will be excessive).

Qantas really had no choice. I suspect the 'factory fresh aircraft' to be delivered starting end of 2023 will be to replace 717s in need of pricey service:
https://www.airfleets.net/exploit/production-b717.htm

Airlines expected to keep going off AA releasing MD-80 parts for their fleets, instead AA consumed quite a bit of its stores and so did DL forcing Allegiant to move on from the type. I suspect the same will happen with Qantas and Hawaiian. It is a great plane, until you look at fuel burn and engine over-haul costs. Not the cost per overhaul, but rather how frequently overhauls are required. The airframe maintenance and dispatch reliability is (and was) excellent, this link goes into the level of detail I love to discuss:
https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aerom ... story.html

I suspect 717 operators were waiting for Pratt/Airbus (mostly, in my opinion Pratt) to improve A220 dispatch reliability. Now Pratt claims 99.98% dispatch reliability on the GTFs (1st link below). The A220 now has 99.85% dispatch reliability (2nd link below in thread discussion) versus many aircraft at 99.5% dispatch reliability. As discussed in that thread, it appears 99.8% dispatch reliability is the new expected level (AFAIK, both the MAX and NEO achieve that).

https://www.aero-mag.com/pratt-whitney- ... -23122020/
viewtopic.php?t=1427277

So Qantas will get a more reliable aircraft and I assume they crunched all the numbers to come to their purchase decision. Fuel burn will certainly be less. With predictive maintenance, I fully expect maintenance expenses for both the aircraft and airframe to be less (but I have no link to confirm that). I believe the range on the A220 will give Qantas a lot more flexibility in operations and thus I fully expect the A220s to fly many more hours per day/month/year than the 717s in part because their range enables more missions and in part the variable costs will be enough lower to make more routes profitable.



Lightsaber

lightsaber wrote:

noviorbis77 wrote:

Will be sad to see 717s go.

When Delta announced just over a year ago they were retiring the 717s, that doomed the type.
https://airwaysmag.com/airlines/delta-a ... 767-300er/

Delta is only keeping 54 of the 717s in service.
https://airwaysmag.com/airlines/delta-a ... 767-300er/

Delta used to have a fleet of 91 of the 717s:
https://airwaysmag.com/airlines/delta-t ... 717-fleet/

With a retirement date about 5 years after the announcement, that implies no more heavy maintenance visits for the type sometime shortly after the announcement; only C-checks should be expected as there are plenty of frames to cycle through to maintain approximately 54 flying. Considering there are only 39 other 717s flying, that leaves no economy of scale for parts and maintenance.
https://www.airfleets.net/exploit/production-b717.htm

Honestly, with only 156 built, the type was always limping along on parts support with AirTran and later Delta supporting the type through volume. THe 2nd and above link imply only 93 flying. That is brutal on parts support cost if you even just need to rebuild parts (forget the cost of buying new parts, that will be excessive).

Qantas really had no choice. I suspect the 'factory fresh aircraft' to be delivered starting end of 2023 will be to replace 717s in need of pricey service:
https://www.airfleets.net/exploit/production-b717.htm

Airlines expected to keep going off AA releasing MD-80 parts for their fleets, instead AA consumed quite a bit of its stores and so did DL forcing Allegiant to move on from the type. I suspect the same will happen with Qantas and Hawaiian. It is a great plane, until you look at fuel burn and engine over-haul costs. Not the cost per overhaul, but rather how frequently overhauls are required. The airframe maintenance and dispatch reliability is (and was) excellent, this link goes into the level of detail I love to discuss:
https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aerom ... story.html

I suspect 717 operators were waiting for Pratt/Airbus (mostly, in my opinion Pratt) to improve A220 dispatch reliability. Now Pratt claims 99.98% dispatch reliability on the GTFs (1st link below). The A220 now has 99.85% dispatch reliability (2nd link below in thread discussion) versus many aircraft at 99.5% dispatch reliability. As discussed in that thread, it appears 99.8% dispatch reliability is the new expected level (AFAIK, both the MAX and NEO achieve that).

https://www.aero-mag.com/pratt-whitney- ... -23122020/
viewtopic.php?t=1427277

So Qantas will get a more reliable aircraft and I assume they crunched all the numbers to come to their purchase decision. Fuel burn will certainly be less. With predictive maintenance, I fully expect maintenance expenses for both the aircraft and airframe to be less (but I have no link to confirm that). I believe the range on the A220 will give Qantas a lot more flexibility in operations and thus I fully expect the A220s to fly many more hours per day/month/year than the 717s in part because their range enables more missions and in part the variable costs will be enough lower to make more routes profitable.

I'm actually surprised how few A220s were purchased. I speculate this is because Qantas is both being cautious and also likes the E-jets for low utilization duty. JetBlue is using the 20% to 30% lower seat costs of the A220 to stimulate flying. Considering the E-jets pushed the 717 out of the market, slide 7 shows the E-jets will probably be for low utilization duty and quite possibly Qantas expects to pick them up cheap enough to replace the Fokkers for low utilization duty (e.g., mine charters)? (I don't know, I'm purely speculating.)
http://investor.jetblue.com/~/media/Fil ... update.pdf

Lightsaber

tommy1808 wrote:

its only 1400 extra kilometers, not 2k, and when does a north-south route like SYD-PVG ever have 100+ knot headwinds for much of the way like LIS-ORD has?

So its not 1400km extra distance to cover, nor 2000 either, but just about one hour. A couple of 100 Kg less weight (probably), 2.8t more fuel and 4t of extra TOW plus whatever improvements PW and CFM can do between 2018 and 2023 are certainly good for one extra hour of flight time.

ESAD for LIS-ORD in the moment is like what? 7700km? That is a some 300km beyond Airbus Brochure range for the LR. For SYD-PVG? 8400Km? That is 50 minutes of cruise.. and 300km within brochure range.

best regards
Thomas

ClassicLover wrote:

RalXWB wrote:

moa999 wrote:

The youngest 737s will still be around well into the 2030s

Not if they exercise all of their options before that timeframe.

They won't, they'll likely do them gradually. Qantas retires aircraft at around 20 years, due to the way depreciation works in Australia. If they could depreciate their aircraft faster (like other airlines are permitted to do under local laws), they would retire them faster.

kimshep wrote:

ClassicLover wrote:

RalXWB wrote:

Not if they exercise all of their options before that timeframe.

They won't, they'll likely do them gradually. Qantas retires aircraft at around 20 years, due to the way depreciation works in Australia. If they could depreciate their aircraft faster (like other airlines are permitted to do under local laws), they would retire them faster.

Whilst I tend to agree that the B737-800's will be written down slowly (as you've stated), I would add the following update:

It is true that QF has historically depreciated it's assets over a 20 year period, which had been a point of contention between QF and the enforced Australian Federal Government policy - compared with SQ whose government - for years - has allowed a more generous and efficient 12 year depreciation.

However, a number of changes have taken place at QF over the past few years, which has seen this Australian Govt policy change somewhat. It is noticeable that QF - like many global corporations - has adopted international accounting standards, rather than the more archaic previous standard. I also suspect that QF's previous policy representations on the matter to the Federal Government have had some effect.

This can directly be seen in the recent two-stage write-down / off of QF's entire twelve (12) frame A380-800 fleet, which controversially caused a significant AU$2 billion 'paper' loss. These frames were nowhere near 20 years old - first frame delivery 2007 and later up to 2014 (IINM) - and are still part of the current QF fleet. I would also point out that the remaining six (6) B747-438ER's were also written off, well before being retired.

JerseyFlyer wrote:

Are all of QF's NGs owned? If any are leased they could be returned sooner.

This can directly be seen in the recent two-stage write-down / off of QF's entire twelve (12) frame A380-800 fleet, which controversially caused a significant AU$2 billion 'paper' loss. These frames were nowhere near 20 years old - first frame delivery 2007 and later up to 2014 (IINM) - and are still part of the current QF fleet. I would also point out that the remaining six (6) B747-438ER's were also written off, well before being retired.

sxf24 wrote:

It is true that QF has historically depreciated it's assets over a 20 year period, which had been a point of contention between QF and the enforced Australian Federal Government policy - compared with SQ whose government - for years - has allowed a more generous and efficient 12 year depreciation.

Accounting is highly structured and incredibly frustrating.

MrHMSH wrote:

Rifitto wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

its only 1400 extra kilometers, not 2k, and when does a north-south route like SYD-PVG ever have 100+ knot headwinds for much of the way like LIS-ORD has?

So its not 1400km extra distance to cover, nor 2000 either, but just about one hour. A couple of 100 Kg less weight (probably), 2.8t more fuel and 4t of extra TOW plus whatever improvements PW and CFM can do between 2018 and 2023 are certainly good for one extra hour of flight time.

ESAD for LIS-ORD in the moment is like what? 7700km? That is a some 300km beyond Airbus Brochure range for the LR. For SYD-PVG? 8400Km? That is 50 minutes of cruise.. and 300km within brochure range.

best regards
Thomas

7700 km ESAD ?This doesn't seem realistic to me, you used average 80 kn headwinds if i'm not mistaken ,that's not the case if you look at the winds map

actually the early stages of flight path face tailwinds up to 40 kn at some points ,the real struggle starts in the final half while approaching the US east coast ,
80 kn is too exaggerated ,David Neeleman wouldn't complain publicly for nothing

FI is sending a MAX8 to Denver in similar conditions nearing 8 hours flight time ,if we apply the same formula to it ,ESAD will be 6750 km ,this is 200 km over the published range ,
either the max is over performing or the LR specs are overrated ,or maybe both

You're pinning quite a lot on a single comment from Neeleman, but he doesn't describe how much the shortfall is and how much he expected it to be. This context would be helpful.

Seems that Airbus did tests to simulate long range flying:

Test flights included a Leap-powered, long range 4,100 nmi (7,600 km) flight by great circle distance, flown in near 11 h and the equivalent of 162 passengers over 4,700 nmi (8,700 km) including headwinds, with five crew and 11 technicians.

http://www.flightglobal.com/systems-and ... 76.article

TP put 198 seats in their dense A321LR and 171 in their lower dense A321LR, maybe they're a little heavy, the plane is capable but sometimes you do need to lower the density to get that range. QF manage it.

Rifitto wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

its only 1400 extra kilometers, not 2k, and when does a north-south route like SYD-PVG ever have 100+ knot headwinds for much of the way like LIS-ORD has?

So its not 1400km extra distance to cover, nor 2000 either, but just about one hour. A couple of 100 Kg less weight (probably), 2.8t more fuel and 4t of extra TOW plus whatever improvements PW and CFM can do between 2018 and 2023 are certainly good for one extra hour of flight time.

ESAD for LIS-ORD in the moment is like what? 7700km? That is a some 300km beyond Airbus Brochure range for the LR. For SYD-PVG? 8400Km? That is 50 minutes of cruise.. and 300km within brochure range.

best regards
Thomas

7700 km ESAD ?This doesn't seem realistic to me, you used average 80 kn headwinds if i'm not mistaken ,that's not the case if you look at the winds map

actually the early stages of flight path face tailwinds up to 40 kn at some points ,the real struggle starts in the final half while approaching the US east coast ,
80 kn is too exaggerated ,

ClassicLover wrote:

RalXWB wrote:

moa999 wrote:

The youngest 737s will still be around well into the 2030s

Not if they exercise all of their options before that timeframe.

timtam wrote:

Fuel savings of 15-20%, much lower maintenance costs on new aircraft, efficiencies from operating, crewing and maintaining one less type and the general preference of passengers to travel on newer aircraft with newer fitouts will hasten the exit of the 738.

timtam wrote:

738 exit won't be delayed by the depreciation rules. If anything, the depreciation rules may drive a faster exit because old aircraft are over valued on the balance sheet and a shrewd CEO/CFO can improve the future performance of the business and achieve their bonuses by taking an opportune non cash writeoff and replacing old aircraft with more efficient new aircraft with little net change in overall depreciation.

Fuel savings of 15-20%, much lower maintenance costs on new aircraft, efficiencies from operating, crewing and maintaining one less type and the general preference of passengers to travel on newer aircraft with newer fitouts will hasten the exit of the 738.

evanb wrote:

timtam wrote:

738 exit won't be delayed by the depreciation rules. If anything, the depreciation rules may drive a faster exit because old aircraft are over valued on the balance sheet and a shrewd CEO/CFO can improve the future performance of the business and achieve their bonuses by taking an opportune non cash writeoff and replacing old aircraft with more efficient new aircraft with little net change in overall depreciation.

Fuel savings of 15-20%, much lower maintenance costs on new aircraft, efficiencies from operating, crewing and maintaining one less type and the general preference of passengers to travel on newer aircraft with newer fitouts will hasten the exit of the 738.

The longevity of aircraft in a fleet are not only determined by age, but by a combination of age, cycles and hours. Other than the engines (which is driven more by hours), cycles are probably the biggest driver of longevity of an aircraft. One thing to keep in mind is that QF B738s have clocked up relatively high cycles for their age which would likely increase the incentives for QF to replace them relatively earlier than people might expect. Essentially, they're well-used for their age. The plethora of sub 2 hour sectors in the QF short haul network (e.g. SYD-MEL-SYD, SYD-BNE-SYD, SYD-ADL-SYD, MEL-ADL-MEL, MEL-BNE-MEL and most others in the south-east) significantly reduce the useful life of a QF B738 compared to airlines whose average stage length is longer.

qf2220 wrote:

I think this discussion about depreciation and its role in aircraft replacement might be a little bit too overstated. Once the asset is sold, for what QF will make sure is as best a price they can get, an adjusting amount will be recorded and if the sale price is greater than the depreciated price, tax will be paid on the profit between book and tax values.

All faster depreciation (Singapore style) does is reduce tax in the early years of the assets life, but there may be a sting later on in the tail of the asset life if the depreciation has been to hard/aggressive in the earlier part of its life.

LTEN11 wrote:

Of course all those short sectors are balanced out with the services to PER/DRW/CNS/AKL/WLG/CHC/DPS/NAN/ASP etc. They rotate the fleet to balance out the cycles, so it's not likely that QF 737's are going to have any higher cycles than any other airline for similar aged aircraft.

evanb wrote:

LTEN11 wrote:

Of course all those short sectors are balanced out with the services to PER/DRW/CNS/AKL/WLG/CHC/DPS/NAN/ASP etc. They rotate the fleet to balance out the cycles, so it's not likely that QF 737's are going to have any higher cycles than any other airline for similar aged aircraft.

Indeed, they are balanced out, not only for cycles, but for utilisation optimisation. However, it's just the sheer number of those short sectors, particularly between Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide relative to the longer sectors that mean that they cannot get entirely balanced out. While Perth is also a big market, it has a lower concentration of B738 flights on the longer stages since many Perth-East Coast flights are flown by A330s. You simply can't compare the nearly 30 daily flights on SYD-MEL-SYD (overwhelmingly B738) to the twice daily SYD-CNS-SYD (some of which are also flown on A330s). The QF B738 network is dramatically biased too short sectors. There is simply not enough flying of longer sectors to compensate for it entirety. The result is that QF's B738's average about 4.6 cycles per day. This compares to about 3.7 in the US. Over 20 years, this can result in about 7,000 more sectors for a QF B738 than AA or DL.

It's this "quirk" that resulted in all but one or two of the B734s retired by QF around the 20 year mark ending up as freighters (most freighters will end up on low utilisation schedules).

jrfspa320 wrote:

evanb wrote:

LTEN11 wrote:

Of course all those short sectors are balanced out with the services to PER/DRW/CNS/AKL/WLG/CHC/DPS/NAN/ASP etc. They rotate the fleet to balance out the cycles, so it's not likely that QF 737's are going to have any higher cycles than any other airline for similar aged aircraft.

Indeed, they are balanced out, not only for cycles, but for utilisation optimisation. However, it's just the sheer number of those short sectors, particularly between Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide relative to the longer sectors that mean that they cannot get entirely balanced out. While Perth is also a big market, it has a lower concentration of B738 flights on the longer stages since many Perth-East Coast flights are flown by A330s. You simply can't compare the nearly 30 daily flights on SYD-MEL-SYD (overwhelmingly B738) to the twice daily SYD-CNS-SYD (some of which are also flown on A330s). The QF B738 network is dramatically biased too short sectors. There is simply not enough flying of longer sectors to compensate for it entirety. The result is that QF's B738's average about 4.6 cycles per day. This compares to about 3.7 in the US. Over 20 years, this can result in about 7,000 more sectors for a QF B738 than AA or DL.

It's this "quirk" that resulted in all but one or two of the B734s retired by QF around the 20 year mark ending up as freighters (most freighters will end up on low utilisation schedules).

Its not entirely balanced out as the frames with the IFE screens tend to get used on the longer flight sectors. The older frames without them hardly ever get used on PER or DRW flights. There are also (at least) two different thrust ratings on the 737 fleet with the higher thrust rating needed for certain sectors.

smi0006 wrote:

jrfspa320 wrote:

evanb wrote:

Indeed, they are balanced out, not only for cycles, but for utilisation optimisation. However, it's just the sheer number of those short sectors, particularly between Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide relative to the longer sectors that mean that they cannot get entirely balanced out. While Perth is also a big market, it has a lower concentration of B738 flights on the longer stages since many Perth-East Coast flights are flown by A330s. You simply can't compare the nearly 30 daily flights on SYD-MEL-SYD (overwhelmingly B738) to the twice daily SYD-CNS-SYD (some of which are also flown on A330s). The QF B738 network is dramatically biased too short sectors. There is simply not enough flying of longer sectors to compensate for it entirety. The result is that QF's B738's average about 4.6 cycles per day. This compares to about 3.7 in the US. Over 20 years, this can result in about 7,000 more sectors for a QF B738 than AA or DL.

It's this "quirk" that resulted in all but one or two of the B734s retired by QF around the 20 year mark ending up as freighters (most freighters will end up on low utilisation schedules).

Its not entirely balanced out as the frames with the IFE screens tend to get used on the longer flight sectors. The older frames without them hardly ever get used on PER or DRW flights. There are also (at least) two different thrust ratings on the 737 fleet with the higher thrust rating needed for certain sectors.

Aren’t some but all, also fitted with life rafts in the ceiling for Tasman/PI operations?

Didn’t know about the thrust rating is this purely for longer sectors?

ClassicLover wrote:

vhtje wrote:

Fun fact: TN signed a LOI for A320s in the late 1980s. I have no idea why they never took them up, but given how AN’s dual type narrow body mainline fleet strategy throughout the 1990s added significantly to their costs and was ultimately one factor in their demise (of many, many factors, I hasten to add), it seems wise that TN, and then QF, stuck with 737s.

I remember seeing the picture of the proposed A320 in TAA's camel hump livery in Australian Aviation magazine when I was a kid. I think it may have been selected prior to the Boeing 737 order, because of that livery - they changed to Australian Airlines in 1986 when the 737 arrived, so that picture would be from before then. I don't believe they were going to do a dual fleet like Ansett (who wanted to operate every aircraft in existence, and pretty much did). I think the 737 was eventually selected instead, probably due to the earlier availability of delivery slots.

TAA's (then Australian Airlines, now Qantas domestic) procurement, fleet planning and technical people were some of the best in the business. Had they not been constrained by the regulatory system of the time, we would have seen some very different aircraft in Australian domestic service, most notably the Caravelle.

jrfspa320 wrote:

Boof02671 wrote:

LoganTheBogan wrote:

Generally I take what pilots and flight attendants say with a grain of salt. Not saying you or your sources are incorrect, however they often don't know any of the behind the scenes work involved in acquiring new aircraft and any new contractual terms that are being drafted.

Airbus has also proposed crew rest facilities which are proven elsewhere too.

At US Airways back in the day out 767s not 757s had crew rest areas and they used them for US to Europe and other international destinations.

They just block seats for them to use.

QF A330s dont have crew rest facilities, just blocked seats.

ClassicLover wrote:

vhtje wrote:

Fun fact: TN signed a LOI for A320s in the late 1980s. I have no idea why they never took them up, but given how AN’s dual type narrow body mainline fleet strategy throughout the 1990s added significantly to their costs and was ultimately one factor in their demise (of many, many factors, I hasten to add), it seems wise that TN, and then QF, stuck with 737s.

I remember seeing the picture of the proposed A320 in TAA's camel hump livery in Australian Aviation magazine when I was a kid. I think it may have been selected prior to the Boeing 737 order, because of that livery - they changed to Australian Airlines in 1986 when the 737 arrived, so that picture would be from before then. I don't believe they were going to do a dual fleet like Ansett (who wanted to operate every aircraft in existence, and pretty much did). I think the 737 was eventually selected instead, probably due to the earlier availability of delivery slots.

TAA's (then Australian Airlines, now Qantas domestic) procurement, fleet planning and technical people were some of the best in the business. Had they not been constrained by the regulatory system of the time, we would have seen some very different aircraft in Australian domestic service, most notably the Caravelle.

ClassicLover wrote:

vhtje wrote:

Here you go. 1985.

Awesome, I remember reading TAA were on the design team for the aircraft. Apparently TAA and Airbus had a very good relationship technically due to the A300 purchase. I wonder what the other two criteria were that TAA specified Great article!

Chipmunk1973 wrote:

Given that the QF group, via JQ, already has a lot of A320s using CFM engines, I wonder why the new order was for P&W?

Cheers.