Qantas Isn’t Buying Any New Planes For A While

As a result of the $252 million half-year loss that Qantas has reported today, Australia’s national carrier is making some big cutbacks. 5000 staff across the entire company are being made redundant, a bunch of flight schedules are being reconfigured, and over 50 new plane orders are being deferred indefinitely.

Business Insider has all the details on the Qantas results; the big loss means the company is accelerating what CEO Alan Joyce calls its “biggest ever transformation” — and that means slicing costs wherever possible. For example, Qantas is speeding up its disposal of the rapidly aging 747 fleet; six standard configuration 747-400s, from the mid-2000s, will be removed from service ahead of schedule, while the nine refreshed 747s with A380-grade interiors, from late 2011, will stick around.

More important than reshuffling the existing equipment and services that it currently runs, though, is Qantas’s plan for future planes. Over 50 existing orders for new planes — some long-haul Airbus A380s and Boeing 787 Dreamliners, and a bunch of Jetstar A320s — are being deferred, with no information available as to when (and if) they’ll be reordered.

What does this mean for the future of the Flying Kangaroo? In the immediate hereafter, there’ll be less Qantas flights on certain routes, while “underperforming” routes like Perth-Singapore could be entirely cut as soon as the start of the 2015 financial year in July. [Business Insider Australia]


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