Totally agree @oliverfreeman , really looking forward to seeing the 777 back in Perth. She is a beautiful aircraft to watch! I am actually doing a work trip to the states in October with QR and when I read this I got excited that I will get to try the QSuites, QSuites all the way to Washington DC...

I think it's more that Qatar have maxed out their available slots to Australia as to why they won't swap out Melbourne A380. Also the Perth swap out is only to manage the maintenance of the big bird until late 2019, early 2020. The capacity is there on the PER-DOH route to be an A380.

Toooo bloody exciting this is!!

I have recently booked a PER-MEL via SYD and leaving SYD on QF497 and couldn't select my seats for that sector which was weird, so I went and did a "dummy booking" and didn't know it was the 787-9 until I went to select my seats and noticed the difference in the seating plan. All the way through ...

I think you need to read the article again, Platinum will be able to select seats in the PE cabin.