Qantas will launch a new route between Brisbane and Manila, and add more flights to Singapore and India. The airline will suspend services between Sydney and Shanghai.
Qantas will launch a new route between Brisbane and Manila, and add more flights to Singapore and India. The airline will suspend services between Sydney and Shanghai.
As part of updates to its Asia network, the Australian carrier announced it will launch a new direct route between Brisbane and Manila from October 28. The new route – which will be operated four-times weekly with Airbus A330 aircraft – will add to the airline's current daily flights to the Philippine capital from Sydney.
Qantas will add increase its flights and seats by more than 2,500 additional seats (10%) between Australia to Singapore. From October 27, Qantas will increase its flights between Brisbane and Singapore from seven to nine weekly flights from October 27. According to Qantas, the Brisbane-Singapore flights will be timed to improve connectivity with its daily flights between Singapore and London-Heathrow to reduce overall travel time to Heathrow by around four hours.
In addition to the Brisbane-Singapore flights, Qantas will increase its flights between Sydney and Singapore from 14 to 17 weekly flights from December 11.
To India, Qantas will increase its flights between Sydney and Bengaluru from five weekly to daily between mid-December 2024 and late March 2025. The increase during the the peak holiday season will provide 12,000 more seats between the two cities during the four months.
Suspension of Sydney-Shanghai Flights
While adding more flights to the Philippines, India, and Singapore, Qantas announced it will suspend its flights between Sydney and Shanghai from July 28.
Following the resumption of the route in October 2023, Qantas stated demand for the route has not recovered as anticipated. The airline will use the aircraft deployed on the route to boost flights to other destinations across Asia with increasing demand.
Qantas stated that customers will be contacted by the carrier or travel agents to discuss flight rebooking or refunds. Customers can travel to Shanghai and other destinations in China on Qantas-operated flights to Hong Kong with onward connections on partner airlines.
“Since COVID, the demand for travel between Australia and China has not recovered as strongly as expected. In some months, our flights to and from Shanghai have been operating around half full,” said Cam Wallace, CEO, Qantas International.
Wallace added: “That’s why we’ve decided to suspend this route and boost flying to other popular destinations with a new route from Brisbane to Manila and additional flights to Singapore and Bengaluru. This will create more choice for our corporate and leisure customers and make it even easier for them to access the places they need to travel to in Asia.”
The airline further stated it will “continue to monitor the Australia-China market closely and will look to return to Shanghai when demand has recovered.”
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