The Qantas Airways Ltd (ASX: QAN) share price is flying high in Monday morning trade.
Shares in the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) airline stock closed on Friday trading for $6.50. Shares are currently trading for $6.65, up 2.3%.
The Qantas share price is outperforming today amid news that the last of Qantas' "incredibly popular aircraft" for long-haul flights is finally emerging from years of COVID storage.
What's happening with the airline's long-haul fleet?
When the pandemic struck in early 2020, domestic and international borders slammed shut. And Qantas found almost its entire fleet grounded and its share price smashed.
The airline was forced to make the difficult decision to temporarily mothball 12 of its double-decker A380 aeroplanes in the desert of Victorville, California. Two were eventually broken up for parts, leaving the other 10 waiting for travel demand to return.
Last year that travel demand returned with a vengeance, throwing up some helpful tailwinds for the Qantas share price.
But only now, almost 1,000 days after grounding in Victorville, is the last of those long-haul aircraft leaving storage. Like the others, it will undergo extensive maintenance and servicing, with many parts to be fully replaced, before returning to service.
Qantas' executive manager of engineering Scott McConnell, quoted by The Australian, called it the "biggest engineering challenge" the company has faced, with the operation taking some 4,000 man hours to complete.
"While the conditions in the Mojave Desert were good for safely storing aircraft, they did create some unique challenges for our engineers," he said. "They worked through storms and snow, extreme heat, and there was lots of very fine dust around."
Commenting on the extensive work required before the last A380 can return to service, McConnell added:
The aircraft also has a number of items on board that have an expiry date, like the escape slides, fire extinguishers and oxygen bottles, so they all had to be replaced. All of the systems were checked, some of these tests taking many days to complete…
It was a massive effort from a dedicated team of people.
With international travel continuing to tick up, McConnel said passengers would welcome the return of the A380s.
"They are an incredibly popular aircraft, and we know that people do seek them out for long haul flying," he said.
Qantas now has seven A380s back in regular service. The other three are scheduled to begin flying passengers in 2024.
Qantas share price snapshot
As you can see on the chart below, the Qantas share price has been a strong outperformer over the past 12 months, up 23%.
Investors who managed to snap up shares during the recent lows on 12 July will now be sitting on gains of 57%.
