A familiar and hard-to-miss sight will return to Australian skies today with one of the Qantas (OTC: QABSY) iconic A380 aircraft set off to land back in Sydney, 593 days after it departed Australian shores.
Hudson Fysh, named after one of Qantas’ founders, is expected to touch down at Sydney Airport around 3.00pm more than 19 hours after it departed Dresden, Germany. The aircraft recently underwent scheduled maintenance for a new landing gear, after spending the best part of two years in storage during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Its early return comes as the airline gears up for the first two of the superjumbos to return to service in April 2022, following strong demand for international travel, particularly on key routes to Los Angeles and London.
Qantas has taken close to half a million domestic bookings in the past two weeks, compared with around 20,000 in a two-week period in August.
Jetstar’s recent international sale saw 75,000 seats sold in 72 hours.
Demand for seats on Qantas’ London to Sydney service has been extremely strong, with Aussies reuniting with family and friends in time for Christmas and more flights added as a result.
Originally expected to remain in long term storage in the Californian desert until the end of 2023, Qantas has since announced that five A380s with upgraded cabins would return ahead of schedule with two to operate flights to Los Angeles from April 2022 and three to operate flights to London from November 2022.
The airline is now working to further accelerate the return of the A380s, with superjumbo flights to London brought forward to July 2022. In addition, a sixth aircraft will arrive before the end of calendar year 2022, with the remaining four A380s expected to return to service by early 2024.
Hudson Fysh will undergo additional maintenance checks in Australia before taking to the skies again in coming weeks as part of crew training.