Qantas will begin saying goodbye to its fleet of Airbus A380s from FY32 as the company announces its international fleet replacement plans.
Labelled Project Fysh, which is in honour of a certain Sir Hudson Fysh, who was incredibly important in co-founding the airline, the project includes replacing the A380 and the much smaller A330 with new aircraft.
Qantas has indicated that its preferred replacement to the Airbus A380 is the A350-1000, an aircraft it had already committed to for Project Sunrise efforts. Still, it has strengthened its commitment by ordering 12 units, with purchase options available too.
As Qantas is set to begin saying goodbye to their A380s in under a decade, the assumption is that the future long-haul fleet at Qantas will comprise of Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 variants.
Qantas acquired its first Airbus A380 in 2008, and since then, it has utilised the world’s largest passenger plane for flying around the globe, from North American services to the Kangaroo route.
Ultimately, the effects of the global pandemic meant that Qantas was forced to ground the series, like most other airlines that had it within their network. However, Qantas never backed down from its stance it would return the aircraft to service permitting demand.
The process to reactivate the Airbus A380 thus far has been a long one that has seen stress on staff at the airline. However, through its sheer capacity size, it has eased pressure on its Boeing 787s and enabled increases in flights to destinations too.
Currently, eight A380s are in service and through the latest expansion announcement, the aircraft will, for the first time, be deployed to South Africa from Sydney.
I think you will find that Qantas will exercise their options for the A350neo stretch variant to replace the A380. These aircraft will sport a new interior and will take over project sunrise from the initial batch of aircraft. The initial batch will then be reconfigured during the C check