Qantas is boosting its A380 operations over the 2015/2016 summer holiday season. The boost will see the A380 operating daily to Dallas/Fort Worth between December 10 and January 20, up from six flights per week at present. During this time, the Sydney-Hong Kong services will also be switched from a 747 service to an A380 service on five days of the week. Following that period, the A380 will then swing onto a daily Sydney-Hong Kong service between January 21 and February 16.
Dallas/Fort Worth
The current Sydney-Dallas/Fort Worth schedule sees an A380 service operating six days a week. With the boost to a daily A380, this adds addtional capacity over the busy summer holiday schedule.
Qantas Airways had been operating a Boeing 747-400 in 2014 priort to replacing the service with an A380. At that time it dropped back to a six day a week schedule. The change over the summer period will bring it back to a daily service.
Hong Kong
Qantas currently operates a daily B747 service between Sydney and Hong Kong. Effective for services from December 10, 1015 through to January 20, 2016, the service will be upgraded to an A380 on five days per week (Mon, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun). Once the extra Dallas/Fort Worth daily service endes on January 20, the A380 that becomes available will be used to boost the Sydney – Hong Kong services to a daily A380 operations.
The boost to a daily A380 operation on Sydney-Hong Kong will add additional capacity over the Chinese New Year period centred around February 8, 2016. Following this period, the sector will again be operated by the 747.
It is good to see Qantas boosting seasonal capacity the way they have been in the last few years. Often times we only hear about the services that have been cancelled due to low numbers, but this shows it works both ways.
Having spare A380 capacity over the summer period is also intertesing, as it may indicate that some work is being done to optimise the timimg of heavy maintenance of the aircraft. By scheduling maintenance in this way, it allows for extra aircraft to be available during peak periods.