Australian carrier Qantas has said that normalising supply chains have allowed it to return aircraft to service to meet resurgent demand.
Qantas Group – which consists of Qantas and Jetstar – CEO, Alan Joyce, said: “We’re seeing the broad trends we expected as the industry recovers and trading conditions remain very positive.
“More parts of the aviation supply chain are returning to normal, which means we’re able to put some of the spare aircraft and crew we kept in reserve back in the schedule.”
The global air industry has seen a post-pandemic rebound, but this has brought a supply chain crunch – leaving airlines scrambling to source both new aircraft and parts to return to service those which had been placed in storage.
In February Qantas Group said it was facing supply-chain and aircraft delivery delays. It said it had been forced to turn to the second hand and lease market to mitigate the effects of the later-than-scheduled arrival of new narrowbody jets from Airbus.
“Aircraft manufacturers are seeing the same supply chain delays as a lot of other industries and we’ve been told that some of our deliveries will be pushed back by up to six months,” Joyce said at the time.
Joyce is due to be replaced as CEO by Qantas CFO Vanessa Hudson in November after stepping down earlier this month.
Qantas also said that global supply disruption was impacting the supply of replacement parts needed to return its remaining A380s to service. He said that maintenance facilities around the world were full as global airlines scrambled to return aircraft to service.
This week Joyce said the carrier was “working hard” to return stored aircraft to service.
One Airbus A380 was scheduled to enter service once again in H2 2023. Another three of the type are reported to be in storage.
“The industry remains capacity constrained and the travel category remains strong, so there’s still a mismatch between supply and demand that’s likely to persist for some time, especially for international flying,” added Joyce.
Qantas is expecting that strong demand will propel Financial Year (FY) 2023 underlying profit before tax to between US$1.58bn and US$1.62bn. The carrier will take delivery of eight new aircraft by the end of 2023.
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