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Qantas Airlines has several Airbus aircraft in service. According to the Qantas Airlines web page:
“Qantas has four A330-200's currently in service, and has plans to expand the A330 fleet to thirteen over the next two years. This plane will become the flagship of our domestic fleet, operating on the CityFlyer routes of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.”
The A330-200 is manufactured by Airbus which uses several state of the art robotic assembly lines to manufacture the aircraft. Through these robots, Qantas Airlines receives the benefits of the some of the most advanced manufacturing robotic systems in the airline industry. In addition, if Qantas intends to purchase the newer A400 model, then they will be flying aircraft whose simulation and design was aided by the latest systems from IBM (developed Dassault Systems). These are the Catia V5 design and Delmia V5 simulation systems.
Looking towards the future, Airbus has just secured a contract which will allow it to procure and test the OCRobotics snake arm robot. The snake arm robot’s purpose is to replace some of the awkward manual procedures necessary in manufacturing today’s complex composite aircrafts. As an Airbus customer, Qantas Airlines will be an indirect beneficiary of the snake arm robot.
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