Air Transport

^{By Leithen Francis in Singapore}

Qantas is re-evaluating the Boeing 777-200LR for non-stop services from Sydney to London, New York and Dallas, but airline executives working on the evaluation decline to disclose when a decision will be made. “We are still undergoing that evaluation. We haven’t made a decision one way or another on that aircraft type,” Qantas head of fleet management David Kelly told delegates at the 12th annual Asia Pacific Airlines Engineering and Maintenance Conference in Singapore.

To get the necessary range “it would require us to significantly change what we would put on the aircraft. Our initial view is we would have to try and take anything between seven to nine tonnes off the material weight of the aircraft,” says Kelly.

The carrier is currently talking to suppliers about lighter materials that could be used for the interiors to help reduce the aircraft’s weight, Kelly says.

He adds that it is hard to get the aircraft’s overall weight low enough so it has the desired range and “a reasonable seat count”.