Qantas Group, Qantas International CEO, Cam Wallace at the CAPA Australia Pacific Aviation Summit 2024

Transcript

Cam Wallace:Yeah, well, I think the right aircraft on the right route is important. What is also important is the right product. So as we move into our fleet reinvestment phase, we've got up to 200 firm orders, and there are a series of widebodies as well as narrowbodies. But as an example, the XLR, the 321XLR, is going to give us tremendous opportunity to have lower costs, have more premium seats, but also opens up more opportunity for skinny and thin routes. Routes that historically we wouldn't be able to service because our, one, our current aircraft don't have the range, or two, the right premium density. So we're looking into and steering into a lot of fleet flexibility, which is going to give us the opportunity from Perth and other ports around Australia to open up new markets. which is going to be tremendously exciting for us. We've got 8 of our A380s back and we've got 2 more coming back into the fleet in around about 18 months. They'll have refreshed cabins and they're important for us in terms of our constrained routes, so into London on a daily basis, but also where we have curfews like Sydney. So those are 2 city pairs that are pretty important for the A380. The other key thing about the A380 from our perspective is our customers really love the proposition and the customer experience. So we'll be flying those aircraft for a little longer, and then we also have access to a lot of A380s through our codeshare partnership with Emirates. In terms of our long-haul order book, we have 24 A350s, and we also have a number of 787-10s in the order book. So we have one tranche of A350, which is our ultra-long-haul Sunrise version, and then the standard A350-1000 as well. So Those are going to be really, really important for Europe and the Americas, and then the 787-10 are primarily there to replace our A330s, and most of those will be pointed to Asia. So we've got tremendous number of short-haul aircraft as well as long-haul aircraft coming in the years ahead. Yeah, well, I was in Airbus only about 3 months ago, and they're really engaged with the program. They're as excited and motivated as we are, so it's on track. We're working at the customer proposition, so working with the Charles Perkins Institute in Australia to make sure that we continue to focus on minimising the impact of jet lag. We're working on the lighting solution, and we also have more customers who are more often travelling on ultra-long-haul services, and we're getting great NPS scores from those journeys. So we think people are getting more comfortable with those longer journeys. They also sit in a high quartile of our economic returns, so we are getting more and more confident about the proposition that customers will have, but also the economic business case that supports Sunrise. So yeah, September 2026 is the date that we're— the first aircraft is due to arrive, and we're incredibly motivated but excited for our customers about connecting Australia to the world. Thank you.

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