A330 and Skybed to Jakarta and Manila
 

Just saw a message on the Qantas website, which came from the link "Business Changes" that describes the Skybed availability schedule, and unearthed the following;

Sydney Manila QF19,20 A330-300 services commence January 09
Sydney Jakarta QF41,42 A330-300 services commence January 09

So it looks like with the exception of NZ, New Caledonia, Hawaii and Perth-Tokyo, all international flights will feature the Skybed product in 2009.

That's great news - the 767's are certainly getting a bit tired on those routes. Hopefully the 330's be in place sooner than that given I'll be heading over CGK way just before Christmas, but at least the flight back might be more comfortable if nothing else. Just glad they haven't Jetstar'd those routes yet either! :eek:

QF have been good at saying when they are improving the service, but not so good in publicising when there is a reduction in service (ie sub a 763 for the 333/332. I hope this doesn't happen!

Interesting there is no mention of HNL.... perhaps a sign it is soon to go to Jetstar? If it were staying with QF I would have thought HNL would be skybedded before MNL

They have run A330-300's on this route before, see this link:

http://www.qantas.com.au/internation...KT_to_AUS.html

It's in Indonesian, but they ran A330-300's on the extra services on:
10/17/24/31 January 2008.

Anyway, it is good news. This service has sorely been in need of an upgrade.

NB, the link for the Skybed Schedule on qantas.com.au is here.

Its good to hear QF is finally removing those tired looking B763 from Asia flying (with the exception of PER-NRT). Not only are the A330s feature a much better and competitive poroduct, but it will also give a healthy boost to capacity (229 seats on the B763 compared with 297 seats on the A333).

Its funny how QF has managed to get the dates wrong on that page. For example, the page states 'QF 135/136 ceases operation from 1 September 2009' but I think it should read 'QF 135/136 ceases operation from 1 September 2008'. :(

Good news!

Plenty of spare A330 capacity online from later this year.

A330s will be freed up from the dropped MEL-NRT and 2x weekly SYD-NRT services. An Intl A332 arrives in DEC 2008, plus more A332s are freed up later this year when B744s once again take over all QF25/26 flying.

I would also expect PER-NRT to be A330 once again as well.

Wouldnt be suprised to see some of the freed up B744s take over some A330 flying such as BNE-SIN and maybe the soon to be single daily SYD-NRT....

QF have publicaly said that they would like MEL-HKG to be double daily B744/A330 as well as increase BOM and look at BNE/PER-China routes.

Interesting times ahead!

Yeah good news really. The 767's were pretty tired.

It has always been hard for me to resist SQ on this route because it's often cheaper and transiting through Changi is no hardship. This will perhaps push me back the other way.

Seems the inaugural A330-300 for QF41 and QF42 is on Fri 16 Jan 2009.

Looks like the 3 A380s are finally having an effect...?

Plus the fact that they have received another A330-200 in the past month.

They are also cutting a fair chunk of routes that are ops by the 330 next month (HKG)

I'm in Jakarta at the moment and they've been advertising in the Jakarta Post about the new services commencing then (on the 16th). Unfortunately I fly back on the 12th, so I guess I get the second last service by a 767 to CGK - I'll try not to get too wistfully nostalgic about it. :D

They are still backsliding on the SYD-MNL routes (QF19/20) unfortunately..the timetables out to December this year are still showing the a/c as 763.

Stupid really.

With the 3x weekly MEL-HKG-MEL A333 flight cut, as well as 3 of the weekly QF87/88 SYD-HKG-SYD flights cut from MAR09 surely this is enough spare A333 capacity to replace the 763 on SYD-MNL-SYD