First visit to Perth, making the inaugural flight of a Qatar A380 on a scheduled service, and becoming the second regular A380 along with Emirates. Photographed here landing on runway 21 and taxying in to bay 121.
Photo © Keith Anderson (Photographed using Canon cameras and lenses)
1 May 2018 © David Eyre
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Spectators gathered at Perth Airport on 1 May 2018, to witness the dusk arrival of the first Qatar Airways Airbus A380 service to Perth.
Qatar Airways first announced the upgraded service on 15 December 2017. The A380s seat 517 passengers in a three-class configuration, with 8 seats in First Class, 48 seats in Business Class and 461 in Economy Class. This represents a 44% increase in capacity over the Boeing 777-300ER previously used, also adding First Class seating, as the Boeing 777s only have Business and Economy seating.
Currently, over 7,000 passengers travel between Doha and Perth every week. Qatar Airways also has services to many worldwide destinations, so the A380 will boost tourism between Western Australia and Europe.
Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, Akbar Al Baker, said: “We have seen continued demand and increased appetite for travel among the Western Australian market since we started flying this route from July 2012.”
Pertyh Airport CEO Kevin Brown was also on site to witness the aircraft’s arrival.“The A380 is the largest commercial aircraft – and Qatar Airways’ decision to utilise it on this route, strengthens its commitment to the Perth market,” Mr Brown said.
“The larger aircraft will add almost 109,000 additional seats providing an extraordinary opportunity to bring more international tourists to our capital city and our State,”
The first Qatar A380 service was operated by a 6-month old Airbus A380-861, registered A7-API, the 235th A380 to be built, which was delivered to the airline on 19 December 2017.
Coincidentally, this first Qatar A380 service was operated three years to the day since Emirates first commenced its A380 services to Perth, on 1 May 2015, and the Qatar A380 parked next to an Emirates A380 upon arrival.
Qatar Airways’ A380 will continue to operate the QR900/QR901 services between Perth and Doha until at least April 2019 and may continue beyond that date.
QR900 Doha – Perth
A7-API pushed back from gate C13 at Doha Hamad International Airport at 2am local time (7am Perth time), and took off from runway 34R at 2:19am (7:19am Perth time). Interestingly, Doha’s Runway 34R is the longest runway in Western Asia and the 9th longest civilian airport runway in the world, at 4,850 metres long.
Due to ongoing diplomatic problems between Qatar and some neighbouring countries, Qatar Airways’ flights cannot pass through some Middle Eastern countries’ airspace zones, so they have to fly around these – in this case, the A380 had to fly northeast and then east past the Straits of Hormuz before heading southeast towards Perth.
QR900 reached its initial cruise altitude of 37,000 feet 30 minutes after take-off and a few hours later climbed to 39,000 feet.
Just over 10 hours later, A7-API commenced its descent approximately 300 kilometres west of Cervantes, Western Australia.
The aircraft landed on Perth Airport’s runway 21 at 6:04pm, with a round of applause from spectators in the Terminal 1 Observation Deck.
It parked at Terminal 1’s Bay 151 at 6:14pm, next to Emirates’ A380 A6-EOM, which had arrived a short time earlier from Dubai.
Total flight duration (gate to gate) was 11 hours 11 minutes.
First visit to Perth, making the inaugural flight of a Qatar A380 on a scheduled service, and becoming the second regular A380 along with Emirates. Photographed here landing on runway 21 and taxying in to bay 121.
Photo © Keith Anderson (Photographed using Canon cameras and lenses)
First visit to Perth, making the inaugural flight of a Qatar A380 on a scheduled service, and becoming the second regular A380 along with Emirates. Photographed here landing on runway 21 and taxying in to bay 121.
Photo © Keith Anderson (Photographed using Canon cameras and lenses)
First visit to Perth, making the inaugural flight of a Qatar A380 on a scheduled service, and becoming the second regular A380 along with Emirates. Photographed here landing on runway 21 and taxying in to bay 121.
Photo © Keith Anderson (Photographed using Canon cameras and lenses)
Behind is A6-EOM Airbus A380-861 (MSN 187) of Emirates, in special United for Wildlife livery.
QR901 Perth – Doha
The return flight QR901 pushed back from Perth’s bay 151 at 10:59pm Perth time and took off from runway 21 at 11:14pm.
The aircraft initially climbed to 30,000 feet then progressed up to 40,000 feet. On the return flight, the aircraft again had to deviate around the airspace zones of neighbouring countries and it commenced descent at 9:55am Perth time, when it was around 100 kilometres northwest of Dubai.
A7-API landed on runway 34R at Doha – Hamad International at 10:32am Perth time (5:32am Doha time), and parked at the gate 16 minutes later, for a total flight duration of 11 hours 49 minutes.
