Scheduling fun & games: Qantas's Las Vegas NRL charters!

Last month, Qantas loaded several charter flights from Brisbane and Sydney to Los Vegas in February and March 2026 in support of Rugby League Las Vegas. This annual event is entering its third year in 2026 and this will be the third time that Qantas have operated charter flights for the event. As reported by Aeroroutes, Qantas will operate four return flights, one from Brisbane and three from Sydney.

This is a significant increase compared to previous years, with only two flights in 2024 and 2025 (one each from Brisbane and Sydney). What’s immediately obvious from the schedule is that the return flights (1 and 2 March 2026) are a week after the outbound flights (24 and 25 February 2026). Qantas aren’t just going to leave four B787-9s sitting around Vegas waiting for the return, so how are they going to schedule this?

Outbound:

QF341 SYD LAS 13:00 07:40 B789 24FEB26
QF343 SYD LAS 15:20 10:00 B789 24FEB26
QF341 SYD LAS 15:20 10:00 B789 25FEB26
QF345 BNE LAS 20:30 15:50 B789 25FEB26

Return:

QF344 LAS SYD 20:00 06:20+2 B789 01MAR26
QF342 LAS SYD 23:25 09:45+2 B789 01MAR26
QF346 LAS BNE 19:40 05:00+2 B789 02MAR26 
QF342 LAS SYD 23:25 09:45+2 B789 02MAR26

Do they run empty legs, flying the the four B787-9s back to Australia empty after delivering their passengers on 24 and 25 February, and them position empty back to Las Vegas from Australia for 1 and 2 March? That’s obviously absurd, so what’s the plan?

Where the scheduling fun begins …

After a detailed look at Qantas’s forward schedule we’ve been able to work out how they’ll operate the positioning sectors to/from existing Qantas US destinations, while proactively removing the countervailing flights from the schedules 8 months ahead of time. It’s a stretch to consider these cancellations as opposed to just not scheduling these sectors given the advanced nature of the changes.

For background, Qantas operate multiple US routes, including daily flights between Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Los Angeles, 3x/week flights between Sydney and San Fransisco, daily and 4x weekly flights between Melbourne, Sydney and Dallas, 5x/week flights from Sydney to New York via Auckland, and flights between Melbourne, Sydney and Honolulu.

The schedules of the Los Angeles and San Fransisco flights are shown below. We’ve excluded the Dallas, Honolulu and New York flights as these aren’t utilised for the positioning flights.

Outbound from Australia:
QF 15 BNE LAX B789 Daily
QF 93 MEL LAX A380 2x/week (M Sa)
QF 93 MEL LAX B789 5x/week (Su Tu W Th F)
QF 11 SYD LAX A380 Daily
QF 73 SYD SFO B789 3x/week (Tu F Su)

Return from the US:
QF 16 LAX BNE B789 Daily
QF 94 LAX MEL A380 2x/week (Th Sa)
QF 94 LAX MEL B789 5x/week (Su M Tu W F)
QF 12 LAX SYD A380 Daily
QF 74 SFO SYD B789 3x/week (Su Tu F)

A further challenge for Qantas’s scheduling team is that Sydney-Los Angeles flights and some Melbourne-Los Angeles flights are flown by the A380 rather than the B787-9, taking them out of consideration as the Vegas charters will be flown on the B787-9.

So here’s what’ll happen. On the outbound from Australia to the US, all the charters arriving in Las Vegas will position empty to Los Angeles the same day to fly originally scheduled Los Angeles departures to Brisbane and Melbourne, with the countervailing flights from Brisbane and Melbourne to Los Angeles cancelled and replaced by the charters to Las Vegas. Notably, the arrival times in Las Vegas and the late night departure times of Los Angeles to Australia flights mean that positioning flights will occur on the day and no time lost in the schedules.

• QF341 SYD-LAS (24 Feb) replaces QF93 MEL-LAX (cancelled on 24 Feb). Aircraft will then position LAS-LAX and then operate QF94 LAX-MEL (24 Feb).

• QF343 SYD-LAS (24 Feb) replaces QF15 BNE-LAX (cancelled on 24 Feb). Aircraft will position LAS-LAX and then operate QF16 LAX-BNE (24 Feb).

• QF341 SYD-LAS (25 Feb) replaces QF93 MEL-LAX (cancelled on 25 Feb). Aircraft will position LAS-LAX and then operate QF94 LAX-MEL (25 Feb).

• QF345 BNE-LAS (25 Feb) replaces QF15 BNE-LAX (cancelled on 25 Feb). Aircraft will then position to LAS-LAX and then operate QF16 LAX-BNE (25 Feb).

On the return flights from the US to Australia a week later, the charters from Las Vegas will replace cancelled flights from Los Angeles to Brisbane and Melbourne, as well as a San Fransisco to Sydney flight. The aircraft will position empty from Los Angeles and San Fransisco after completing from Brisbane and Melbourne in the case of Los Angeles, and Sydney in the case of San Fransisco.

Notably, positioning flights on the return leg are more complicated as late afternoon arrivals into San Fransisco (from Sydney) and Los Angeles (from Brisbane) mean that one QF15 BNE-LAX on 1 Mar has been retimed to depart more than 2 hours earlier, while QF73 SYD-SFO on 1 Mar will overnight before/after positioning from San Fransisco to Las Vegas.

• QF344 LAS-SYD (1 Mar) operates instead of QF94 LAX-MEL (cancelled on 1 Mar). Aircraft will position LAX-LAS after arriving that morning as QF15 BNE-LAX.

• QF342 LAS-SYD (1 Mar) operates instead of QF74 SFO-SYD (cancelled on 1 Mar). Aircraft will position SFO-LAS after arriving that morning as QF73 SYD-SFO.

• QF346 LAS-BNE (2 Mar) operates instead of QF16 LAX-BNE (cancelled on 2 Mar). Aircraft will position LAX-LAS after arriving that morning as QF15 BNE-LAX.

• QF342 LAS-SYD (2 Mar) operates instead of QF94 LAX-MEL (cancelled on 2 Mar). Aircraft will position LAX-LAS after arriving that morning as QF93 MEL-LAX.

Now, imagine what a fun job this is to manage this jigsaw puzzle?