Qantas (QF, Sydney Kingsford Smith) is considering ordering 12 ultra-long-haul aircraft for its so-called Project Sunrise but has asked both Airbus and Boeing to come up with improved proposals, Reuters has reported.
"We’ve asked them to go back and re-look at that, to sharpen their pencils, because there still was a gap there... This aircraft is going to be in the fleet for the next 20 years and we want to cover off eventualities, making sure that it’s future-proofed," Chief Executive of Qantas International Tino La Spina said during a quarterly investor call.
The Australian airline received "final" offers from both manufacturers in August 2019 and was expected to make a decision by the end of the year. Group Chief Executive Alan Joyce recently said that the decision will most likely slip into early 2020.
Airbus is believed to be proposing its A350-1000(ULR) twinjets while Boeing is competing with B777-8s. Given the delays marring the B777X programme, the American manufacturer is also believed to be offering an alternative deal involving in-production jets.
The touted order size of 12 jets is larger than previously expected and would suggest that Qantas is looking at a considerable network of ultra-long-haul flights. While it has singled out direct services from Sydney Kingsford Smith and Melbourne Tullamarine to London and New York, it has also touted Paris CDG, Buenos Aires Ministro Pistarini, Cape Town International, and Chicago O'Hare as possible destinations, as well as Brisbane International as a possible point of origin.
Joyce did not confirm the anonymous source mentioning 12 jets but confirmed that Qantas intends to "have to have a big enough sized fleet to make the economics work". Speaking to ch-aviation earlier this year, Joyce underlined that given Qantas' geographical location, the airline was the only one in the world which could potentially find a use for a sizeable fleet of ultra-long-haul jets. He argued that other markets were simply not remote enough to need many such aircraft.
Singapore Airlines (SQ, Singapore Changi) currently operates seven A350-900(ULR)s and is the world's only operator of the ultra-long-haul variant.
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, Qantas currently operates eighteen A330-200s, ten A330-300s, twelve A380-800s, six B747-400(ER)s, and ten B787-9s, as well as seventy-five B737-800s.
The Qantas CEO is expecting the airline to charge a 30% premium on direct flights between South-East Australia compared to services that operate via connecting hubs.
The airline currently serves New York JFK via Los Angeles International and London Heathrow via Singapore Changi, the ch-aviation schedules module shows.
