David Eyre 
Since 30 May 2011, Qantas Boeing 747-400s have been operating scheduled domestic services between Sydney and Perth.
Schedule is to operate six days per week (not on Saturdays):
- QF581 from Sydney, arriving in Perth at 1305. Departs Perth at 14:35 to return to Sydney as flight QF582
Some other Qantas 747-400 visits were to cover unscheduled maintenance on other aircraft.
More recently, a number of QF63 Sydney – Johannesburg 747 services have made a fuel stop at Perth because they had to take longer route to avoid volcanic ash clouds from Chile.
It is not the first time that Qantas 747s have operated domestic services. Until 2008, Qantas 747-300s operated on Perth-Melbourne and Perth-Sydney routes, but the A330-200 took over the Melbourne route from 1 July 2008, and the Sydney route from about September 2008.
