Qantas eyes engines

Qantas Airways is in the final stages of assessing the two engine options for its future fleet of Boeing 787s. Alan Joyce, chief executive of Qantas's low-cost subsidiary Jetstar, says "we're probably within the next month or so making a decision on that. It's getting close." He adds: "Something may go to the December or January [Qantas] board meeting," where a decision is likely to be taken.

Qantas has been assessing the General Electric GEnx against the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 since it announced orders for up to 115 of the 787 twinjets late last year. The deal with Boeing covers 45 firm orders as well as 20 options and 50 purchase rights.

The first aircraft will be 313-seat 787-8s and they will be for use by Jetstar, which last week expanded into the widebody international market using 303-seat Airbus A330-200s. Its 787s will start arriving in August 2008 and, after the arrival of the sixth aircraft, Jetstar will begin replacing the A330-200s, leaving it with a fleet of 12 787-8s by late 2009. In 2010 and 2011 it will be replacing the 787-8s with larger, longer-range 787-9s. The 787-8s will then go into domestic service with Qantas.

Jetstar is meanwhile looking at a narrowbody fleet expansion from 2008. "We have paused domestic for a short time while we get international working. We are not taking any new [narrowbody] aircraft until the end of 2007 because we are taking delivery of the six A330s for international," Joyce says.

"But we are looking at our plans for early 2008 onwards and we are trying to source aircraft because we believe there are growth opportunities in the short-haul market - domestically, trans-Tasman and short-haul international."

Jetstar has 24 A320s - 21 for its domestic network, two for services to New Zealand and one - wet-leased from sister carrier Jetstar Asia - for services to Singapore from Cairns and Darwin. Joyce says Jetstar will add A320s and possibly A321s as part of its short-haul expansion.

Source: Flight International