Qantas may face stiff competition on its Perth to London nonstop with Virgin Atlantic’s founder flagging a start of operations as soon as possible. According to CH-Aviation, Sir Richard Branson told Your Money host Brooke Corte that he wants to start services as soon as possible. Qantas launched the Perth to London service in March and has enjoyed high load factors of 92 percent overall and 94 percent in the premium cabins. Read our Future of Flying Virgin Atlantic has 17 Boeing 787-9s in its fleet, however, they are powered by Rolls Royce Trent engines which have corrosion issues and a number of the fleet are grounded awaiting replacement fan blades. In fact, this is not the first time that Sir Richard has looked at the London-Perth non-stop. In 2003, when in Perth to launch The West Australian’s Leadership Matters series he discussed the possibility of acquiring several ex-Air Canada four-engine A340-500s and flying the route. These are the same aircraft that Singapore Airlines used at the same time to launch Singapore to New York nonstop. However, when the fuel price soared the route became unviable and has only been restarted this month with the far more economical twin-engine A350-900ULR.