Qantas chief confident of new Dreamliners despite reliability issues

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce has reportedly said that he is confident that new Boeing 787 Dreamliners delivered to Jetstar are extremely safe despite some reliability issues.

Budget carrier Jetstar's first high-tech Dreamliners for international routes are due to be delivered to Melbourne on Wednesday, weeks after Norwegian Air Shuttle demanded Boeing to take back a plane and fix its hydraulic pump after just a month in service.

Joyce visited Boeing's factory in Seattle and said that the aerospace giant had worked closely with Boeing engineers to pinpoint possible problems, news.com.au reports.

He said that it is important to distinguish reliability from safety as reliability in new aircraft takes a while to get up there and it is not a safety issue.

According to the report, 50 Dreamliner jets were grounded globally in January when lithium-ion batteries caught fire on two Japanese airlines.

Qantas has ordered 14 Boeing 787s for Jetstar, which are being delivered until late 2015.

Joyce said that the lighter Dreamliners would reduce fuel costs in the Qantas group, and help enable the airline to have an even younger fleet than Singapore Airlines in the next couple of years.