Qantas to use A380 on London to Melbourne flights

Qantas will use the Airbus A380 to operate flights to Melbourne from Heathrow Airport from January, it has been announced.

The service will get underway on January 18th and will operate via Singapore.

Qantas took delivery of its fifth A380 recently and will be receiving its sixth over the next few days.

Alan Joyce, the airline's chief executive officer, said: "Qantas' inaugural A380 service in October 2008 was between Melbourne and Los Angeles.

"With the arrival of two new aircraft, growing our A380 fleet to six, we are pleased to be able to offer customers a second route option out of Melbourne – to London via Singapore."

The new route will initially be served by one to two flights per week, with capacity due to increase to regular twice-weekly services on March 29th.

This date will also see Qantas increase capacity on its A380 flights from Melbourne to Los Angeles and from Sydney to Los Angeles and London.

Mr Joyce said the airline's A380 services have been "extremely popular" with customers, with more than 500,000 people having used them since October last year.

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