During a session discussing Qantas’ half-year financial results, the airline’s CEO Alan Joyce spoke about several things, including financial losses, new routes, and the path to recovery. He also discussed Qantas’ domestic fleet order and gave a quick update on Project Sunrise.

Project Winton

Qantas has named its domestic fleet renewal program Project Winton, honoring the town in Queensland where the carrier began its journey. Late last year, the airline was busy deciding the type of airplanes that would form the backbone of its future domestic needs.

As Qantas entered the final stages of discussions with airplane and engine manufacturers, the planes in contention included the usual suspects such as Boeing’s 737 MAX family, the Airbus A320 family, and even the smaller Embraer E-Jet E2 family and Airbus A220.

The Qantas Group already had an existing order of more than 100 Airbus A320 and A321 airplanes, but they were primarily meant for its subsidiary Jetstar.

While Airbus was hoping to close another lucrative aircraft deal with Qantas, Boeing was pinning its hope on the carrier replacing its current domestic workhorse aircraft – the 737 – with the advanced version of the type.

Airbus bagged the deal

In December 2021, in a big blow for Boeing, Qantas opted for Airbus narrowbodies for its future domestic operations. The carrier announced that it would buy 40 aircraft from the A320neo and A220 families with options for a further 94 aircraft.

The first 40 airplanes will be divided into 20 A321XLR (extra long-range) and 20 A220 planes. Accounting for all the options in the deal, Airbus was looking at a potential order of more than 130 narrowbodies from Qantas over a ten-year period.

The order was expected to be finalized sometime in the middle of this year, and Joyce gave a further update recently that everything looks on track, saying,

“Subject to Board approval, we expect to finalise the order for our domestic fleet renewal with Airbus – a decade long program that we call Project Winton – by mid calendar year. These aircraft will be the backbone of Qantas Domestic, will deliver a big reduction in fuel consumption, and represent a huge part of our future.”

Qantas expects the Airbus fleet to enable better network choices and route economics and their Pratt & Whitney GTF engines to deliver fuel savings of between 15-20%.

What about the other Airbus order?

Another Qantas project that so far has seen a series of delays – Project Sunrise – was also discussed at the half-year results session. Qantas has put its faith in Airbus’ modified A350-1000 aircraft with extra fuel tanks to connect Sydney and Melbourne with direct flights to cities like London and New York.

While Joyce did not give any specific details about the A350 order, he did mention that work on Project Sunrise has started again, saying,

“Work has also resumed on Project Sunrise. Our latest customer research shows the demand for direct long-haul flights is even stronger than it was pre-COVID, so our focus on delivering non-stop services from Sydney and Melbourne to New York and London remains.”

Hopefully, Qantas’ next update on this will be a little more detailed.