This time last week I was in Sydney at the Qantas Head Office for a meeting. What a fascinating day, meeting a wide range of people in different roles and looking around their office. Located at Mascot near the airport, up until a few years ago Qantas was housed in three separate buildings; however you now arrive to a large integrated building thoughtfully designed to connect the three original buildings with an enormous glass atrium. Congratulations to Architectus the designers. This welcoming area is large enough to house an historical prop aircraft which is dwarfed by the modern engine sitting beside it. It also houses coffee shops for staff to congregate in.
All areas of the airline are housed in this area including the IOC – Integrated Operations Centre. This is the beating heart of the airline, running 24 hours a day and taking up an entire floor with over 100 staff in attendance. This hub includes engineers, meteorologists, schedulers, flight planners, repairs and maintenance co-ordinators, crew scheduling, freight logistics, medical emergencies to name a few. This is the control centre of the airline and they monitor all 221 aircraft in the fleet. They have a policy that there are no disasters just challenges.
We were chatting to the people who look after last minute changes due to unforeseen and out of Qantas’ control amendments. The example they used was Elon Musk’s satellites that are launched regularly and affect commercial aircraft. Little did they know that a couple of hours later they would be swamped by the global outage caused by CrowdStrike … it must have been hectic in the IOC. I am happy to say I arrived at the Qantas check in around 530 last Friday and there were no queues and the flights were on time – well done Qantas.
Crew training is also located here – the course takes 8 weeks and the most stringent area is safety. Safety is also the area that trainees will pass or fail. Within the training area there are mock ups of aircraft with seating in first, business, premium and economy class for International and business and economy for domestic. They have all the trollies with food and beverages, and you can imagine the novices going through their paces before they are welcomed on board.
We were there during Qantas Wine Week. Ten sommeliers come together for a week to taste over 1500 wines to decide which will be selected for the upcoming year. There was a hint of wine in the air as we wandered through the corridors. I can imagine when the test kitchens are in full swing the aromas must be enticing!
In the atrium there is also a mock up of the new Project Sunrise aircraft. These are the new Airbus A350-1000 that will operate nonstop flights from Sydney to New York and Sydney to Europe. This new aircraft will have far fewer seats with only 238 (a normal A350 carries between 300 to 420 seats). There will be 6 spacious first class suites – these are very private with a door to the aisle, a fully made up flat bed, a table, a separate seat and also a small seat for a visitor to use. The 52 comfortable business class seats are also enhanced from the current offering – they have lay flat beds and a table. There are 40 premium economy seats which give that extra space and comfort and only 140 economy seats. The service on board will be elevated with a wellness area where passengers can stand and move around and even help themselves to the snack bar. The design focus on this new aircraft is unique to Qantas who will be the only airline offering these ultra long haul flights. Initially the flights will be out of Sydney with connections from Queensland, however as time goes on and more aircraft come online these services will operate out of Brisbane. Ordered in May 2022, the first aircraft will be delivered in 2026. Watch this space!
Qantas has received a lot of bad press recently. My view is that all airlines have been stressed post covid to recover and reintroduce their services and train new staff. Thousands of people left the industry and they are being replaced. I have flown Qantas a few times recently and I haven’t had any issues, no delays, helpful crew and pretty much on time. We have a national airline we should be proud of.
