Qantas Chief Financial Officer Vanessa Hudson , who as per many Australians , should succeed CEO Alan Joyce , has indicated that they are in the process of phasing out the A330 fleet.
As many of it's wide body aircraft , either kept under long term storage or getting scrapped , current aircraft count stands at 118 , out of which 25 units are Airbus A330.
Many of these A330 are reaching 20 years of age from 2023 onwards , and Qantas would definitely look to replace them in a phased manner to avoid increased maintenance activities and groundings .
Vanessa Hudson said :
“That aircraft is heading to the end of its useful life,” “we will be looking at the market in the coming 12 months.”
She added ,
“We will run a competition as we have done for the narrow-body fleet in the coming 12 to 18 months.”
This clearly indicates , Qantas is not yet sure about the replacement aircraft to it's A330 fleet. So, it's getting more evident that Boeing and Airbus would compete to woo Qantas to sell their products, which again is the exact desire of Qantas.
Because it's a replacement of wide body aircraft , there are two options for the Australian carrier . While Airbus may like to sell its revamped A330neo aircraft , Boeing will try to pull Qantas towards the B787 Dreamliners.
On May 1st 2022 , Qantas had ordered twelve A350-1000 , twenty A220 and twenty A321XLR aircraft to replace it's wide body and narrow body fleets respectively.
And the carrier expected , the Rolls-Royce XWB powered A350s will enable the Australian airline to launch much awaited Project Sunrise , non-stop Sydney to London flights.
Related Qantas story : In a move to rehabilitate the image of the carrier , Qantas CEO Alan Joyce spoke of a range of gifts for its millions of frequent flyers to formally apologise for recent operational hardship.
