Together they chased traffic from Oceania to San Francisco and tapped into that Sydney business to Hollywood, but now Qantas and American Airlines are going after Air NZ with new Auckland-LA flights.
Operated by American Airlines and codeshared by Qantas, the new service takes off this evening to increase competition on the trans-Pacific route.
It’s the third trans-Pacific route launched by the two carriers over the last year, since they expanded their partnership to flights from Sydney-LA; Sydney-San Francisco; and now Auckland-LA.
According to American Airlines’ VP of Global Marketing, Fernand Fernandez, in addition to giving Kiwis more options to the US, the new service also provides easy connections to American Airlines’ wider network across America and Mexico.
“Together with Qantas and Jetstar, we’re able to provide a strong triangular network across the Tasman to Australia, giving our customers exciting itineraries and a network unrivalled in this part of the world.”
Fernand Fernandez, American Airlines VP of Global Marketing
The new daily service is operated on American Airlines’ Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with 28 flat bed seats in Business Class and 141 seats in Economy. All together, the airline is adding 1,600 seats a week between Auckland and LA, bringing competition to the route that Qantas says has been “a monopoly since 2012”.
Ooooooo, Qantas just covered the sun with all that shade:
Qantas International CEO, Gareth Evans, said the partnership is about giving travellers more choice and to encourage more holidaymakers to travel across the trans-Pacific.
“Both Qantas and Jetstar are growing into New Zealand, so it’s the perfect time to link our trans-Tasman and domestic networks with the bigger trans-Pacific network we’ve been building over the past year.”
Gareth Evans, Qantas International CEO
Meanwhile, American Airlines has today also received approval from the United States Department of Transportation to operate scheduled services between Miami and five cities in Cuba – Camaguey, Cienfuegos, Holguin, Santa Clara and Varadero.
Flights are scheduled to begin in September and represent American’s first-ever scheduled services to the opening travel destination.