Qantas celebrates holiday with high prices and more cancellations
Australian air passengers are facing years of turmoil as delivery schedules for new aircraft ordered by Australian airlines — from both Boeing and Airbus — face significant delays leading to further flight disruptions and fare hikes in the foreseeable future.
An ageing Qantas fleet is requiring higher levels of maintenance. With no spare aircraft or engines at Qantas Group and slower replacement and expansion for both the Limping Roo and Virgin Australia (that between them hold 98% of the Australian market), airfares within and from Australia have been forecast to surge in 2025. According to the Amex Air Monitor report for 2025, domestic economy airfares will be jumping 13.7% from 2024 prices, and ticket prices from Australia to Asian destinations are set to increase by 12%.
The Albanese government has yet to reveal the terms of its taxpayer-funded short-term rescue of regional carrier Rex. Crikey understands it is considering taking on Rex’s debt with private equity group PAG Capital and that the Department of Transport is putting together an oversight taskforce.
The speed of fleet renewal plans for Qantas Group to replace Boeing planes with A220s, A320neos and A321XLRs — a total of “up to 134” aircraft — are now under threat. Qantas has informed pilots that the first A321XLR won’t arrive until May 2025, more than six months later than initially planned, with only one other plane due this year out of a total order of 29.
The key issue for Airbus aircraft lies with delivery delays of the Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan engines ordered for all these aircraft models that have caused groundings and safety checks worldwide. The delivery of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft of which Virgin Australia’s has 39 on order are also experiencing setbacks.
Qantas’ new A220s are triggering more maintenance problems than expected, with one pilot describing the aircraft as a “drama queen”. There are also ongoing crewing issues due to an insufficient number of pilots having been trained on the aircraft. The latter issue, pilots told Crikey, is due to a poor and cut-price training program that dumped original plans to train pilots in North America, as well as salary levels for flight deck crew.
“Airbus is behind schedule getting A220s out the door,” Ellis Taylor, dashboard editor at Aviation Analytics firm Cirium, told Crikey. This means Qantas has fewer aircraft than the 717s it replaced, all of which have now been retired.
These escalating problems at Airbus have emerged as Qantas’ ageing fleet continues to experience engine issues, cancellations and delays, particularly during the recent Christmas and New Year period. Qantas cancelled nine flights on Wednesday and 17% of mainline flights were delayed, according to Flight Aware. There are “practically no spare CFM56-7B engines available for the Boeing 737-800s”, the biggest single fleet that Qantas operates, Taylor explained.
The root cause is that due to these delays issues with new aircraft like the Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 Max, not enough of those older aircraft are being replaced at the levels anticipated, and there are no spare engines being released. As one cheap fix, rather than order new aircraft for its Western Australia fly-in-fly-out business to replace its most ancient fleet of Fokker 100 jets, Qantas is adding more 20-year-old A319s and A320s from Jetstar and US carrier Spirit, pilots said.
Virgin Australia faces its own challenges with delayed deliveries of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft due to ongoing problems at Boeing and safety concerns. In September last year it confirmed it had changed its order for a smaller MX model but that deliveries had been delayed until 2026.
The end result for Australian travellers is a perfect storm of fewer new aircraft, higher ticket prices, and escalating delays and cancellations from ageing fleets across all major airlines.
For sure, Qantas and Virgin are not immune from the now serious long-term problems at Boeing and Airbus that are affecting carriers globally — but instead of coming clean with its passengers, Qantas prefers to use its relentless and at times fanciful spin machine where there is never any bad news.
For passengers, however, it is reality that bites. Over the holiday break delays and cancellations continued apace due to maintenance issues particularly with overworked engines and growing flight deck crewing problems, especially in its regional arm QantasLink.
With an election looming the government appears to have finally woken up to the level of consumer frustration and anger in the sector. In belated response, the sleepy Transport Minister Catherine King pushed out a proposal for an Aviation Customer Rights Charter a full three days before Christmas. This would guarantee refunds and compensation for cancelled and delayed flights as well as lost luggage — rights that have long been available in the EU and were improved and legislated in the US last year.
The charter was noticeably absent from the government’s poorly received August 2024 Aviation White Paper. Of course any charter will not be delivered until after the election following yet another round of taxpayer funded consultations — and furious behind-the-scenes lobbying and duchessing from Qantas and Virgin to try to water it all down.
One pilot told Crikey, “They only make money when they are in the sky.” Proving that old aviation adage: “The most useless thing on earth is an aeroplane.”
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