On 13th September 2001 Ansett Australia Airlines was placed into voluntary administration
by 100% owner Air New Zealand. Just one day later the administrators concluded that
Ansett could not be rescued and grounded the airline.
This created a vacuum in Australia with QANTAS suddenly the only player in the market
and in urgent need of extra capacity. The leases of various leased Ansett aircraft
were taken over, a Boeing 737-700 was wet-leased from Air Pacific and several Boeing
767-300s were wet-leased from Air Canada to maintain links across the Tasman Sea.
These measures helped in the short-term but it was clear that QANTAS needed a more
permanent solution. Fortuitously for QANTAS American Airlines had the opposite problem.
In the wake of the September 11th attacks demand for air travel within the US had
fallen dramatically and all US airlines were looking to offload capacity. Particularly
American Airlines was keen not to take on their order for several Boeing 737-800
aircraft.
On 26th October 2001 QANTAS announced that it had taken over the American Airlines
order for fifteen Boeing 737-800s. More importantly, Boeing was able to commence
deliveries within 100 days. The initial eight aircraft were already on the production
line under American Airlines’ 737-823 designation but were switched to the QANTAS
737-838 designation. This was the first time Boeing had changed the designation of
aircraft that were under production. With American Airlines’ technical help the new
type was quickly integrated into the QANTAS domestic fleet and by mid-2002 a further
batch of aircraft were ordered. Followed by regular small orders which brought the
fleet up to 38 aircraft.
In late 2007 QANTAS announced a further order for 31 Boeing 737-800 aircraft. The
initial three aircraft of this order were delivered to New Zealand subsidiary JetConnect
for Trans-Tasman services in late 2009. This new batch of aircraft have personal
TVs and audio/video on demand in both cabins. Delivery dates for several of the aircraft
were deferred due to the Global financial crisis but JetConnect’s full order for
8 aircraft was fulfilled on 20 August 2011 with the arrival of ZK-ZQH. QANTAS also
received several aircraft during 2011.
The QANTAS 737-800s can currently be found operating throughout Australia and on
International flights to Noumea and Queenstown, Christchurch and Auckland in New
Zealand, although at one point they operated via Bali as far north as Singapore.
The JetConnect machines operate trans-Tasman services from Auckland to Brisbane,
Sydney and Melbourne, from Wellington to Sydney and Melbourne and from Christchurch
to Sydney.
