Qantas B787-3 & Golden Triangle

From what I remember this variant was specifically designed by for the Japanese domestic market then I think ANA & JAL canceled their orders and the planned production stopped after that.

This is not a blog for you to speculate what would happen for cancelled airline orders, there are aviation blogs for that.

🙏 Thank you for your in depth reply.

Does the BNE-MEL part of the triangle get any QF A330s ? The SYD-BNE part only seems to get a token A330 service.

It would make sense for flights between the 1st and 2nd largest cities to get the larger aircraft. Despite what we may think, Brisbane is quite a smaller city than Sydney so it will be rarer than the Sydney to Melbourne route. Keep in mind that they deploy these on Perth - East coast routes too.

The 787 is too heavy for short flights hence the Boeing mid market plane being developed to compete with the A321. The A330 is also probably too heavy but QF is not going to commit another 20 years to another too heavy aircraft which it would with 787-3

Thanks

Alan quoted recently that the 787/330 are too capital intensive operating such routes and the likes of the 797 are better suited.

The 787-3 was to have been a 787-8 with a reduced wingspan and using blended winglets rather than raked wingtips. The reduced wingspan was targeted at gates that were used for 757 and 767s. As an alternative to A330s on the triangle routes, the 787-3 would have been less effective than the 787-8, given that the modified wing would have been less efficient.

A little 'off-topic' but memories from the nineties and later..

Odd hearing BNE-SYD-MEL being referred to as QF's 'Golden Triangle'. Back in the day, QF's 'Golden Triangle' was the HKG-BKK-SIN-HKG triangle which was somewhat lucrative and popular with Aussie travellers to Asia. Not a singular route, but functioned by both scheduling originating in various Australian cities and later, by codeshares.

Regrettably, it was systematically folded by QF in a series of it's route culls. From memory, HKG-BKK was first to go, then(PER)-SIN-HKG and lastly the (CNS)-SIN-BKK operated last by JQ, if I remember correctly. At one stage, SIN-BKK-SIN was also operated as a QF codeshare on AY metal. I wonder whether QF retains the individual 5th Freedom rights on these sectors?