Qantas Waits for Next Gen Planes to Fly Non-Stop to NY

10th Sep 2015

The Australian carrier is looking to use the new Boeing 787-9s to launch new routes in Asia and the US, however says that it will wait for the next gen or aircraft to start flying non-stop to NYC.

Chief executive officer Alan Joyce said today at a Royal Aeronautical Society lunch in Sydney that there are several viable markets for the 787.

Yesterday, the carrier increased its service from Sydney to Hong Kong to four per week and the company has also managed to get go-ahead for its subsidiary Jetstar to fly Boeing 787-8s between Gold Coast and Wuhan, China two times per week as a part of a tourism package with Dalian Wanda Group.

Speaking about the possibilities of the Chinese market, Joyce said:

"We're big supporters of the free-trade agreement and we think that it needs to be approved, that it needs to happen. Every projection says that Chinese tourism for Australia will be, in the next decade or so, 40 per cent of all tourists here."

He also said:

"We'd like to see a bigger and bigger operation in China. The arrangement with China Eastern could be potentially our biggest arrangement. It could overtake the American; it could overtake the Middle East.

In addition to China, Qantas also plans to use the 787-9s to open up routes to other destinations in Asia (India in particular), as well as to and from America, with Melbourne-Dallas being the closest to fruition.

However, as Joyce said, the carrier is waiting for the next generation of planes to launch a Sydney-New York-Sydney service, rather than use the 787s:

"It [Boeing 787-9] covers a lot of the US, and that's great, but it's going to be the 777-8x or an aircraft of that technology range that potentially can do New York-Sydney in both directions. I think that market is the pinnacle of what we'd want out of aircraft range."

Qantas does have a five-weekly service to New York, but with a stop in Los Angeles.

"We'd love to get there someday because there is a demand for it but we can't pick up traffic in Los Angeles, because of the traffic rights so that is a stop we're doing which is a costly slot. And if you can avoid that and fly direct to New York it would be a great market for us."