TRAVELCONSUMERDAILY.COM
THURSDAY, JULY 15, 2010

QANTAS has jumped the queue for its long-awaited Dreamliner planes by negotiating with Boeing to buy "slots" from airlines that had cancelled or deferred their own deliveries because of production holdups.

Boeing still hasn’t delivered one of its new 787 Dreamliners that airlines were originally scheduled to receive in 2008 because of problems with the ultra-lightweight composite materials in its wings and fuselage that are being used to achieve promised fuel savings of more than 20% compared with earlier-generation airliners the same size.

However, early production versions of the 300-seat 787 are now being test-flown, with the first planes to be delivered to launch customer ANA of Japan at the end of this year.

Qantas and subsidiary Jetstar weren’t scheduled to receive their first 787 copies until late in 2013, but they will now begin arriving in June 2012. Jetstar will get the 313-seat 787-8 version first, with the first larger 787-9s not arriving until 2014.

Jetstar’s current 303-seat Airbus A330:200s will eventually be transferred to Qantas, which will use them and the 787s to replace domestic Boeing 767:300s.

Jetstar is expected to launch its first long-haul services from Singapore to Rome in 2012 using the 787s.