Sunrise this morning had a first peek at the new Qantas logo.

The Qantas 767 bearing the new-look livery undertook a secret flight under the cover of darkness across Sydney last night.

It’s only a short hop from the super secure paint shop Qantas uses at the Richmond air force base to Sydney Airport, but those who got a glimpse claimed the flying “roo symbol has survived the makeover but looks fat and pregnant, and a bit like a wombat”.

That said, the glimpse was brief and distant. The Sunrise pics seem to show a leaner, more stylised kanga. Is it supposed to look like a passenger seat or is that just us?

The big fat QANTAS lettering on the current livery has apparently been replaced by what was described as thin backward-leaning italics that looked to one person like they were written in Thai characters.

Of more material importance is the announcement tomorrow of the new Qantas product in all classes, including a new premium economy class on long haul flights including the giant Airbus A380 which starts flying Melbourne to Los Angeles about next August.

The timing is exquisite.

Qantas is taking the limelight right away from Singapore Airlines, which will be first with the A380 on the Singapore-Sydney route in October, but hasn’t shown off its new product innovations.

And the re-design announcement will almost certainly drain the media away from the Asia-Pacific Aviation summit in Sydney where Virgin Blue is planning to launch the name of its new transPacific carrier and a range of competitors including Tiger, Etihad, Emirates and AirAsia are all planning to showcase their plans in the Australian market.

The new roo is such a bitch.