Qantas Confirms New Order?

If you'd like to support the channel a little bit further and get these videos early, feel free to become a channel member. Qantas, well they're moving closer to placing another long haul aircraft order after they moved up the retirement of the Airbus A380 by 4 years, 2028. The airline confirming that it is, in discussions with Airbus and Boeing, around 20 purchase rights that are present in current contracts, bringing them to firm orders with deliveries likely to commence from the 2030s onwards that would not only shape renewal, but also you're looking at growth. With the retirement of the remaining superjumbos now being brought forward, the airline's capacity gap will obviously become more evident, and the need to meet what is evolving demand not just now but say in 10 years, means that these purchase rights were a vital strategy part of recent orders to lock down possible delivery slots before obviously production slots are sold out completely. Reported interest in more wide-body aircraft at Qantas isn't fresh, but in its FY26 results published in the last week, the company did go as far as saying that discussions with the two manufacturers were open and ongoing, that being the clearest signal yet of the airline's intent to scale its wide-body fleet. The Australian flag carrier said the focusing in on approximately 20 existing purchase rights, with a view of turning them into firm orders and locking in delivery dates. However, the split between Airbus and Boeing is not something that has been disclosed, nor obviously the final aircraft variants. What we do know is Qantas holds orders for the 350 and 787 families as touched on and they have options within those. Qantas we know is also expected to build a wide-body future around those two families, the A350-1000 certainly being the nearest arrival in terms of its excitement, as well being Project Sunrise, the late launch in 2027 expected with the ULR, but it is also the A350-1000LR that has been selected for the A380 as a like-for-like replacement. We already know that Qantas has been flying the 787 for quite some time, and then the 787-10 debut maybe being one of the more exciting acquisitions that we'll see for this family. The next phase of fleet renewal is less than 10-12 months away. Yes, the A350-1000 ULR being the first step, but Qantas will also take delivery of the next batch of 787s, a big step in improving its overall seat capacity. These inbound next-gen planes will also bring the new business class cabins. That's really important. It's a strategic investment by the airline when it signed the initial contracts, knowing that it needed to be able to not only scale its overall seat capacity, but additionally, like its international counterparts, invest more heavily in the premium product to try and drive revenue and meet some of the demands of high-yield customers as well. By holding purchase rights for wide-bodies at Airbus and Boeing, Qantas able to use those initial contracts, work around flexibility without having to go and say, sign a completely new agreement, which would come with a whole additional plethora of complexities. This way, it can avoid that. And what is important here, and I hate to bring it up again, but the pursuit of more wide-body capacity. As we know, Qantas confirmed it will phase out the A380s from calendar year 2028. That replaces the previous confirmed outline of 2032. Bringing forward the axings by four years comes as the Qantas chief Vanessa Hudson said that rising maintenance costs and the disruption that was being caused was quite significant on the A380 fleet. Obviously, as any aircraft type ages, the need to replace it becomes more evident. But in the case of an A380, well, it's a bit more of a specialized type. It is the highest capacity plane in the world and also for Qantas. So its role is pretty hard to replicate. And that sheer scale and uniqueness does bring additional pressures, which means as those planes get older, they become a little bit harder to manage. With 10 of these A380s currently present and remember the type grounded during the COVID-19 pandemic, rising fuel prices and more all being something that the business now has to consider. Moving on from the A380 earlier than what we would have expected, while obviously unfortunate from an aviation enthusiast standpoint, makes sense with the expected continued delivery of more next generation wide-bodies. Obviously, those ongoing discussions about further 787 and A350 deliveries being locked down for the 2030s. I'd love to hear your take. At the moment, we're unsure of the exact say mix and the specific variants that the company would be looking to say include, but it is worth examining. And if you have a belief of the direction that Qantas should go, whether it is more 787s or maybe it's the debut of the A350-900, you can let me know down below in the comments. Thank you very much for watching another video here on the channel, and I'll see you back here tomorrow for more industry news.