12 years after ordering, Qantas finally gets a Dreamliner

Almost 12 years ago, Qantas and the Boeing company announced a large order for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. This order of 45 aircraft plus 20 options and 50 purchase rights was for Qantas and their low cost subsidiary Jetstar.

During the interim period, the order changed many times. In the end Jetstar received the aircraft first, now operating a total of 11 examples.

After 12 Years Here It Is

The aircraft is now painted in the latest Qantas livery and recently emerged from the paint shop. It looks gorgeous in the Qantas colours and I am glad it is finally almost ready for delivery.

While the names of the eight Qantas Boeing 787s are known, we do not know which one will go on the first aircraft. On the nose is the Qantas flying kangaroo logo and the name should be there but it is not. Drats!

Dreamliner Plans

Four aircraft will be based in Brisbane and four will be based in Melbourne. This is to facilitate the Dreamliner operating from Los Angeles to Melbourne to Perth to London. The Perth to London flights are the first non-stop scheduled flights from the Australian continent to Europe.

Aircraft based in Brisbane will take over some flying currently served by Boeing 747-400’s being retired. The airline also notes the Dreamliner puts Seattle, Chicago and San Francisco in the United States and Vancouver in Canada in range of the city. It is possible new routes will be opened once the deliveries occur.

Melbourne to Los Angeles is the first international route for the Qantas aircraft. This begins in December 2017 with the aircraft operating for six weeks on domestic routes before that. Australian frequent flyers should keep an eye out so they can get a flight on the new aircraft nice and early.

Once Perth to London opens up it will be just 22 miles shorter than the current longest flight in the world operated by Qatar Airways between Auckland and Doha. Quite a long flight indeed!

Overall Thoughts

It is going to be interesting to see which name is selected for the first aircraft. For cute marketing reasons I back Skippy or Quokka though Great Southern Land and Dreamtime would also be appropriate for various reasons.

Keep an eye on what Qantas do with the aircraft as the expectation is new US and Canadian destinations that may not currently be served. Interesting times ahead! Thanks for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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All images via Qantas.