Australia’s Qantas airline has announced the addition of three mid-life A321 passenger to freighter converted aircraft to accelerate renewal of Qantas Freight fleet, for delivery in FY25 and FY26.
The P2Fs form part of a wider passenger fleet expansion designed to help restore capacity faster and meet strong demand from leisure travel, resources and domestic freight markets.
The Group has orders and purchase right options for up to 299 narrowbody aircraft and firm orders for 12 widebody aircraft with Airbus to update and grow its fleet over the next decade and beyond.
Four of those aircraft have already been delivered and nine more are expected to arrive this year in addition to three Boeing 787s, but rolling delays of up to six months for other aircraft are expected over the next couple of years due to global supply chain issues.
Core to the changes announced today is the decision to acquire several mid-life A320-family aircraft for freight and resources customers to help offset these delays.
Once the delayed aircraft are delivered, the Group has the option to retire or retain the aircraft they were originally designed to replace, depending on market conditions.
Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce said: “We’re at the start of a major update of the Qantas Group fleet that will unlock a lot of benefits. The aircraft we have on order will help us lower emissions, expand our network, create new jobs and ultimately serve our customers better.
“Aircraft manufacturers are seeing the same supply chain delays as a lot of other industries and we’ve been told that some of our deliveries will be pushed back by up to six months.
“When you combine the delays with the sustained growth in travel demand that we’re seeing, we need to find other ways to lift capacity in the short and medium term.
“Wet leasing more aircraft from Alliance Airlines will provide a very rapid injection of extra capacity domestically, but with plenty of flexibility to adjust that over time depending on what is happening in the market.
“The arrival of new narrowbody aircraft into Jetstar, in particular, was creating a pipeline for existing aircraft to be used for freight and resources markets. Given the new aircraft are delayed, we’ll buy a number of second hand A319/320s to make sure we can still meet demand from our customers.”
