Qantas Provides Dedicated Cargo Fleet for Australian Post

The deal which comes into effect as of July this year, sees the carrier reserving two Boeing 737-300Fs, one Boeing 737-400F and three BAe 146-300Fs from their own domestic freighter fleet for the sole use of Australia Post and its subsidiary StarTrack for the transport of domestic mail, express post and parcels throughout Australia.
The aircraft will all get a new StarTrack livery.
The B737-400F is on order and will join the fleet in the very near future.

The mid-year start of operations is planned to cover nine domestic destinations within Australia and is a five year contract which is estimated to be worth A$500 million (€322.7 mn) to Qantas. The aim of both parties is to operate this service well into the mid-2020s.

Oz Post secures belly capacity…
Another part of the deal ensures that Australia Post also gets a so-called priority access to belly space in the Qantas and another Australian carrier, Jetstar passenger fleets.
This, along with the dedicated freighter service allow Australia Post to streamline their postal services and deliveries throughout this large continent.

The Boeing 737 freighters which are being supplied by Qantas are owned by the QF owned Express Freighters Australia, while the BAe146 cargo aircraft are operated for Qantas by Cobham Aviation Services.

Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce, is quoted as saying, “Australia Post would benefit from the airline group’s scale and wide network reach. Our focus in designing this agreement is to help our biggest freight customer better coordinate their supply chain and ultimately deliver a better service to their customers.”

… while TNT teams up with Virgin Australia
Cooperation between the three partners, Qantas, Australia Post and Startrack, has been in effect since way back in 1992 when there was a 50-50 joint venture formed between QF and Australia Post.
StarTrack Express was acquired by the group in a 50-50 deal in 2003, whereby Qantas then sold their share in StarTrack to Australia Post in 2012.
After transfer of the aircraft and start of operations, Qantas Freight’s own all cargo fleet will then consist of just one B767-300F and two B737-300Fs

In another Australian airline sector, Virgin Australia’s freight arm, which was started in 2015 signed up TNT as a major and important customer by supplying dedicated freighters in order to serve the contract.

Things are moving in the air freight world “down-under.”

John Mc Donagh