Qantas Flew Two A380s Between London and Dresden in One Day to Swap Jets Through Maintenance

Qantas flew two of its Airbus A380 superjumbos between London Heathrow and Dresden, Germany, on October 15, 2026. One came out of Dresden and the other went in, on flights of under two hours, FlightAware records show.

Dresden is where Qantas has sent its A380s for maintenance. The swap put a 614-mile (988 km) European hop on a jet that usually flies 12 to 14 hours at a stretch between Singapore and London.

Two jets, one day

VH-OQJ took off from Dresden as QF6038 at 10:35 a.m. local time and landed at Heathrow at 11:16 a.m. UK time, a flight of 1 hour 41 minutes.

A little over three hours later, VH-OQD took off from Heathrow as QF6037 at 2:35 p.m. and landed in Dresden at 5:00 p.m. local time, about an hour and 25 minutes in the air.

VH-OQD had reached London only that morning. It landed at 6:36 a.m. on QF1 from Singapore, the last leg of Qantas’s scheduled Sydney to London service, having left Sydney on October 14.

Simple Flying, which first reported the swap, said both positioning flights were flown empty, that VH-OQJ was coming out of heavy maintenance and that VH-OQD went in for a C-check, one of an airliner’s periodic heavy inspections. AeroCorner found no Qantas statement on the flights.

Why Dresden

Dresden is home to Elbe Flugzeugwerke (EFW), a joint venture of ST Engineering and Airbus. It maintains and repairs Airbus jets, builds composite parts and converts passenger aircraft into freighters.

In January 2025, EFW announced that a Qantas A380 would fly in from Sydney via Singapore for maintenance. It said several more Qantas A380s would follow at short intervals over the first half of that year, and that the same aircraft had been in Dresden in 2020 for maintenance and a full cabin renovation.

EFW calls itself one of the few companies worldwide able to carry out A380 maintenance. At the time, it said Dresden had received more than 50 A380s over the years, all of them serviced by EFW.

London as the hinge

That 2025 aircraft was flown in from Australia by way of Singapore. This week’s swap used Heathrow, where Qantas’s Sydney to London A380 service ends, as the meeting point instead.

The routing let VH-OQD carry passengers on a scheduled service to London and then cover the last 614 miles to the hangar, the great-circle distance between the two airports.

The returning jet did not go straight back to work. FlightAware shows no QF2 departure from Heathrow on the evening of October 15 and lists that service’s Singapore to Sydney leg the next day as cancelled.

Simple Flying reported that VH-OQJ had been planned for that QF2. FlightAware showed no further flight for VH-OQJ by midday UK time on October 16, while QF2 was back on the schedule for 9:00 p.m. that evening.

Heavy checks on a fleet with an end date

The maintenance comes as Qantas winds the type down. With its FY26 results, Qantas said the A380 will be gradually phased out of its fleet from calendar year 2028.

“With our first Project Sunrise A350-1000ULR to arrive in April, and more A350s and 787s on the way, it’s a new era for Qantas’ international fleet,” Qantas Group chief executive Vanessa Hudson said. “This means we can commence the retirement of our A380 fleet from 2028.”

Qantas’s FY26 annual report, as summarized by AirNav Radar, says A380 production has ended while the cost of operating and maintaining the aircraft keeps rising.

Until the replacements arrive, Qantas remains one of the airlines still flying the A380, with the type in daily service on the London route. In the first half of October, FlightAware logged VH-OQD on flights to London, Dallas and Los Angeles, and sister jet VH-OQL on a trip to Johannesburg.