Qantas Business Class Seating

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 03:32:09 GMT, Not the Karl Orff
wrote:

In article ,
matt weber wrote:


maintenance, so for example the Ugly Sisters entered service well
after the First class Bed and Dream time Biz Class product was in
service on many aircraft, but they elected to put the aircraft into
revenue service with the MH and OZ cabins (which were awful, and many
of the cabin amenities were unreliable beyond belief. It was so bad
that QF employees were forbidden to discuss the state of these
aircraft. IFE never lasted through a flight, a lot of the galley
equipment was broken, and replacements had 9-12 month lead times....)

Not that bad. i was on an ugly sister in February 2000 that had
Dreamtime seats (which I despise anyway)
If it had the dreamtime seats, it has been refitted, The original
seats were somewhat worse than the pre Dreamtime QF C/J seat.

Well, the a/c are orphans in a way that they're GE powered while the QF
744 fleet is RR powered, so i guess QF had to buy 6 744ERs (GE powered)
to keep them company.


There is a dirty little secret in the industry. The RB211-524G/H
engine never made fuel guarantees for QF, and when they got to
midlife, they became a very real headache for many customers.

There is a reason that BA's early 777's have GE engines, and it wasn't
just because GE bought the Wales facility from BA. BA wasn't real
happy with the RB211-G/H engine, and they were not alone by any means.
In fact BA got pretty ugly publicly about the engines. BA complained
that the unschedule removal rate was twice what it had been on the
524D's.

QF sent a similar message to RR by shoppping for the Ugly Sisters, and
then making a point of ordering the 400ER's with CF6's,which they also
put on the A330's.

Early JL 747-400 also have GE engines, JL got real unhappy with PW in
the mid 1980's, and the GE was to send a message to Hartford.....

The fix was to put a new hot section in the engines from the Trent,
making them the 524 G/H-T. Those upgrades were generally sold to
airlines at a tiny fraction of the list price, but the deal included
full and final settlement on all of the outstanding G/H reliability
and fuel economy issues.

In article ,
matt weber wrote:


There is a dirty little secret in the industry. The RB211-524G/H
engine never made fuel guarantees for QF, and when they got to
midlife, they became a very real headache for many customers.

Thanks. Did;t know that. SO only a handful of customers - namely BA,
QF, CX, NZ and ZA got stuck with the RB211s?

There is a reason that BA's early 777's have GE engines, and it wasn't
just because GE bought the Wales facility from BA. BA wasn't real
happy with the RB211-G/H engine, and they were not alone by any means.
In fact BA got pretty ugly publicly about the engines. BA complained
that the unschedule removal rate was twice what it had been on the
524D's.

Presumably all is forgiven between BA and RR now?

QF sent a similar message to RR by shoppping for the Ugly Sisters, and
then making a point of ordering the 400ER's with CF6's,which they also
put on the A330's.

Early JL 747-400 also have GE engines, JL got real unhappy with PW in
the mid 1980's, and the GE was to send a message to Hartford.....

The fix was to put a new hot section in the engines from the Trent,
making them the 524 G/H-T. Those upgrades were generally sold to

This i heard about. Some 5% increase efficiency? So that was the
reason.

BTW, any news to the rumour the A340-600 is meeting specs?

On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 04:49:26 GMT, Not the Karl Orff
wrote:

In article ,
matt weber wrote:


There is a dirty little secret in the industry. The RB211-524G/H
engine never made fuel guarantees for QF, and when they got to
midlife, they became a very real headache for many customers.

Thanks. Did;t know that. SO only a handful of customers - namely BA,
QF, CX, NZ and ZA got stuck with the RB211s?

There is a reason that BA's early 777's have GE engines, and it wasn't
just because GE bought the Wales facility from BA. BA wasn't real
happy with the RB211-G/H engine, and they were not alone by any means.
In fact BA got pretty ugly publicly about the engines. BA complained
that the unschedule removal rate was twice what it had been on the
524D's.

Presumably all is forgiven between BA and RR now?

QF sent a similar message to RR by shoppping for the Ugly Sisters, and
then making a point of ordering the 400ER's with CF6's,which they also
put on the A330's.

Early JL 747-400 also have GE engines, JL got real unhappy with PW in
the mid 1980's, and the GE was to send a message to Hartford.....

The fix was to put a new hot section in the engines from the Trent,
making them the 524 G/H-T. Those upgrades were generally sold to

This i heard about. Some 5% increase efficiency? So that was the
reason.
IN RR's dreams. The initial PR from RR said 1.5-2%, however most
operators including QF are seeing much less, usually around 1%.
However 1% on LAX-SYD is worth about 3000 pounds of payload
(+3000AUD), and that is 3000 pounds less Jet A (-600AUD or so), so
revenue wise it is worth about 1 million AUD per year for each daily
LAX-SYD service.

BTW, any news to the rumour the A340-600 is meeting specs?
Not much, the fact that no one is saying anything suggests the news
isn't very good otherwise the good folks Toulouse would all have
sprained arms from patting themselves on the back so hard.

One can easily establish that the A340-500 is still either seriously
overweight, or aerodynamically seriously underperforming.
Airbus admits that the early -500's are at least 1000Kg overweight,
and my guess is the real number is more like 3000Kg.

The original SQ specification called for 200 pax LAX-SIN against 90%
winds. The fact that the aircraft only has 181 seats speaks
volumes...... That suggests they are still about 2000Kg overweight.

PER-LHR is even further, so I'll let you guess what sort of load it
could carry for QF. The SQ aircraft don't have F/P class, the seats
weigh too much!!! That is why QF is very unlikely to be interested in
the A340-500. It would just barely make PER-LHR, but would be limited
to about 5,000Kg LESS lift than SQ LAX-SIN flight. 5000Kg means about
130 paying passengers.

The big advantage that the 7E7 has is excpetionally low structural
weight. We will have to wait for the figures, but the thumnails
suggest is a 767-400ER size, with 767-200 weight.


Given that unless you happen to live in PER, a PER-LHR flight saves no
time at all over a SYD-SIN/BKK-LHR routing, and probably more than
doubles the ASM cost versus the SIN/BKK routing, it is wishful
thinking in Toulouse.

In article ,
matt weber wrote:

d about. Some 5% increase efficiency? So that was the
reason.
IN RR's dreams. The initial PR from RR said 1.5-2%, however most
operators including QF are seeing much less, usually around 1%.
However 1% on LAX-SYD is worth about 3000 pounds of payload
(+3000AUD), and that is 3000 pounds less Jet A (-600AUD or so), so
revenue wise it is worth about 1 million AUD per year for each daily
LAX-SYD service.

I guess $1mm per flight pair helps

BTW, any news to the rumour the A340-600 is meeting specs?
Not much, the fact that no one is saying anything suggests the news
isn't very good otherwise the good folks Toulouse would all have
sprained arms from patting themselves on the back so hard.

Unlike the 777-300ER which is performing better than expected? I have
heard some news that some 346 operators are unhappy about it.