Qantas Sending Its 787 Fleet To The California Desert

The whole of Australian society has lost its sense of sanity with this virus. You cannot percent the spread of a virus that is asymptomatic in up to 70% of people who get it.

Let’s not forget Qantas has a large MX base at LAX, so it does make kind of sense.

Interesting... I have a ticket booked on Qantas from USA to NZ (through Sydney) in December and it still shows as operating...

Australia seems to impose more drastic measures than most other countries. Therefore I would expect flights to/from Australia to start last. So it makes sense to store the planes.

Now, as regards the storage place, I’m also bit surprised. I assumed the 747/A380s went to Victorville, because there is quite a high probability they are getting scrapped. And there is such a facility there. But I would be shocked if the 787 are getting scrapped ... Based on that they could also store them in Australia, other than Alice also Kalgoorlie would be an option.

You indicate the word "majority" in the article and "most" in the final question, but choose not to place either in the title. Your title would indicate the entire 787 fleet is moving to the California desert.

@Andy

I went up to Mammoth from Orange County during a weekend in June and drove by the Victorville airport. Saw the three 747's parked there, but no A380s to be found.

Marco, the 747s went to Mojave (MHV) located in the western Antelope Valley. They will the scrapped. The A380s (and soon to be 787s) are in Victorville (VCV), roughly 20 air miles to the southeast in eastern AV, where they are being "pickled" for future use (although the A380s are questionable). Both airports store aircraft and have vendors to fulfill the needs of the customer. QANTAS does have a fantastic maintenance facility at LAX, which is a 1.5 to 2 hours drive away. I am certain there will be many road trips to both airports. I recently retired from QANTAS and am quite sad to see what is happening, but what needs to be done must be done.

@Matt Yep. I got an AAward ticket on Qantas AKL-SYD-SFO booked in mid-March 2021 and it also has not been cancelled, AFAIK.

So question is what are they flying? May put them out of business! Bad times for all!

@Matt and @mangoMan

I previously had traveled scheduled for Dec 2020 to AU on Qantas but cancelled earlier in the year. While the flight is still showing on my Qantas APP, I can say with near 100 percent certainty that it will not operate (for instance, it still says the operating aircraft is the A380 while we know these are parked in the CA desert). AU is trying to go full suppression on the virus (despite the current travails ongoing in the state of Victoria), and that will mean travel from the US for the casual tourist is not likely possible before Q4 2021 at the very earliest. As you have award tickets without the attendant tie-up in cash like I did, obviously it is fine to wait for cancellation. But I suggest not making any nonrefundable ground arrangements as I would be really shocked if you actually get to proceed with the trip. By the early fall timeframe I would expert Qantas to cancel the next tranche of its international schedule (currently only thru about 10/28/20).

@matt and @mangoMan Qantas have only cancelled flights up until 31 October 2020. However they have removed the ability to purchase seats until end of March.

That’s why your tickets are still showing up- I expect them to be officially cancelled in the next few weeks.

I spoke to Qantas today Re my flight in November to Singapore and they told me that they are cancelling month by month as the call centres could not cope if they cancelled everything to July 2021 .They are up to September cancellations refunds and credits . Purchased flights are only being refunded or credits For flights booked to 31 October. They told me to wait another month and the free cancellation refunds will be extended post 31 October 2020.
All FF award flights are cancellable without charge

The 787’s are being stored in the US because the insurers want them in the US not in Australia, plus the Alice Springs aircraft storage facility is now full. The proximity of the engineering base in LAX also helps with logistics.

Average humidity in Alice is less than average humidity in Victorville. Must be some other reason, like cost, or availability.

@Aniron completely agree. Huge overreaction here with the level of restrictions imposed vs the paltry number of cases, and the travel restrictions are draconian.

Hi Donald, it must really make you sad to see what is happening to Qantas and the aviation industry in general. How wonderful to have worked for Qantas

Aniron, making a sweeping generalisation, with some fake figures to support it, doesn't make it any truer.

And the point of the restrictions is to have a low number of cases. If we had a high number of cases THEN it would have been stupid to have the restrictions as they hadn't worked. Which is what happened in the US and UK for example. Just unmanaged. Whereas here we have restrictions and as a result few cases.

Simple, logical outcome. Sad that some don't understand that.

19 deaths in one day in the Australian state of Victoria, and the Covid deniers ask, "So what?" Makes you wonder how they feel about 18 deaths in a 737 accident in India. None of their family was involved.