Qantas to undertake major aircraft upgrade project in Brisbane

Qantas announced (27-Nov-2013) its fleet of 30 A330 aircraft will have new cabin interiors installed at its Brisbane heavy maintenance and engineering facility. Qantas also announced it is recruiting 30 apprentice engineers, with over 20 to be based in Brisbane and the remainder in Sydney. Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce, who was in Brisbane to officially open the AUD30 million (USD27 million) upgrade to the hangar, said: "Qantas is extremely proud of our state-of-the-art Brisbane heavy maintenance facility, which is ideally suited to undertake the upgrade of our Airbus A330 aircraft... From late 2014, we will be upgrading all 30 of our Airbus A330s with Business Suites with fully flat beds. Ten A330-300s for Qantas International will feature new economy seats and 20 A330-200s for Qantas Domestic will see their economy seats refurbished. It will take around 30 days for each aircraft to get upgraded and we expect the programme to be completed in mid-2016. The $30 million upgrade to the Brisbane facilities includes the installation of advanced equipment to enable Qantas' fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft to undergo heavy maintenance in the facility". [more - original PR]