Due to severe storms forecast to impact the Sydney region late this afternoon, Airservices Australia has limited the number of arrivals and departures in Sydney for all airlines resulting in a number of cancellations and delays.

Qantas will use an Airbus A380 from Melbourne to Sydney to ensure customers get to Sydney as close to schedule as possible. The A380 will carry 485 customers, the equivalent of almost three Boeing 737 flights which normally operate this route.

These customers were originally travelling on three separate flights from 4pm onwards, so it is unlikely they were travelling to Sydney for tonight’s Taylor Swift concert. A fourth flight has also been cancelled with customers reaccommodated on other Qantas services today.

The A380 being used today is an operational spare that is on standby to ensure there is resilience in the Qantas operation. While this would normally be used to support our international network on flights to places like London and LA, given the incredibly high demand into Sydney today, it is being brought in to support the domestic operation.

Our operations teams across our domestic and international network have done a fantastic job to quickly find a solution that ensures customers can still get to Sydney today despite forecast severe weather.

QF7168 will depart Melbourne International Terminal 2 at 5:00pm and arrive at Sydney International Terminal at 6:40pm.