I told the story of the Boeing 717 in image 0420. It's essentially the linear descendant of the Douglas DC-9 (produced 1965-1982) which was upgraded to become the MD-80 (produced 1979-1999). It also had cousins; the stretched MD-90 (1993-2000) and the shortened MD-95.

The MD-95 was rebranded as a Boeing after that company took over McDonnell Douglas in August 1997. There were only two numbers left in the iconic 7x7 series; 717 (which had only been used as an internal designation for a 707 variant (specifically the KC-135 tanker) previously), and 797. They didn't want to expend the prestigious high end 797 number on an aging commuter aircraft, so 717 it was. 156 of them were produced from 1998 to 2006. QantasLink, the regional branch of Qantas, has 20 of them with 18 active, and has sold off 3 in the past. Unusually for Qantas, some are second hand.

I saw two of them on Shep's Mound that day; VH-YQX, a 717-2K9 model which I took a few good shots of, if I do so myself (0420 and 0431 in particular), and this one; VH-NXQ, a Boeing 717-231 named Port Campbell National Park which I took... rather less impressive photos of. Like its sibling, this one is also doing the Sydney to Canberra route although this one is inbound from Canberra as QF1502 CBR-SYD.

If you are seeing this gallery on Flickr, this will just be another image in the series. If you're viewing it on PBase before the owners completely lose interest and just switch it off, it's being posted as an additional out of sequence shot in a gallery which is far from complete. So why now?

Qantas (more specifically that little piece of sh...enior management Alan Joyce) announced yesterday that the 717 fleet will be sent into The Great Beyond by mid-2024, and will be replaced by 29 new Airbus A220-300s. The A220s will have more seats (137 vs 110 on the 717), double the range and a 28% lower fuel burn per seat.

The QantasLink CEO (a different guy) said that he expects to have "6 or 7" A220s in the fleet by the time the last 717 leaves. So... do the maths on that. There are 18 717s operational. They expect to have, let's say 7 A220s operational when the last one leaves. That still leavers an 11 aircraft gap (or 1,210 seats) that the additional 27 * 7 seats per aircraft (189 seats total) just doesn't fill, not to mention bloody great holes in the schedule.

Back to the Chief Executive Pissan... er, Officer of Qantas (Joyce). He said:
"Qantas is in the early stages of the biggest fleet renewal program in its history, with up to 299 narrowbody aircraft spread over 10-plus years as well as the A350s that will operate our Project Sunrise flights. It's an incredibly exciting time for our employees as well as our customers as these new aircraft create more opportunities and unlock new destinations."

Uh-huh. Qantas has underinvested in planes for... pretty much the whole of Joyce's tenure, preferring to report what I view as artificially inflated profit results (which justify meaty executive bonuses, purely by coincidence of course) and artificially boosting the share price (with the same results) via buy back schemes. The total fleet at the moment is 123 aircraft. (Although that doesn't count QantasLink, which has 115, but 50 of those are turboprop Dash 8s which aren't likely to be replaced by jets given their short haul routes.) But there will be (supposedly, and note the weasel expression "up to") 299 narrow body jets coming in over 10 years. The average age of the Qantas fleet is now 14.3 years, with the oldest aircraft being 21.4 years old and the youngest being over 2 years old. But trust us, we'll be getting more than 2 new aircraft per month for the next decade.

Of course, Joyce is retiring in November doubtless to "offer his services" to the professional company directors' private club, so all that capital expenditure will be someone else's headache.

The star of the departure announcement was the first 717 to be registered and flown in Australia, VH-NXI which is a 717-2K9 model named Blue Mountains National Park. That plane completed more than 29,000 flights and carried over 1.6 million customers during its two decades of service. It is scheduled to leave Australia in mid-June. I'm not sure who the buyer is but apparently its final flight in Qantas colours will include eight fuel stops, including Cebu (Philippines), Sapporo (Japan), and Anchorage (Alaska, USA).

It remains to be seen how long VH-NXQ will be flying the colours for, but for now, it still is.