In a major shake-up to travel to Japan, Qantas intends to replace its current Melbourne and Brisbane flights to Tokyo Narita Airport with services to Tokyo Haneda Airport by early 2025.
The news comes after the International Air Services Commission (IASC) announced it had granted Qantas one extra daily flight slot to operate passenger services between Australia and Tokyo Haneda.
The approval, which is valid for five years starting from 25 February 2025, allows Qantas to add a third daily service between Australia and Haneda, which lies on the outskirts of downtown Tokyo – as opposed to Narita, which is located over 60kms away from the Japanese capital’s centre.
Qantas currently operates two flights a day from Sydney to Tokyo Haneda, alongside a daily service from Melbourne and Brisbane to Tokyo Narita.
Now with three slots, the airline says it intends to operate one service for each BNE and MEL and swap one of its Sydney flights to Haneda with a Narita service. So the carrier aims to cover both Haneda and Narita ex-SYD.
Despite the determination, the airline must still wait for slots at Haneda to be approved, so doesn’t have any official network announcements yet.
But its plan to further cash in on the burgeoning demand for travel to Japan is firmly in place.
Qantas applied for this allocation on 16 September 2024, stating its intention to operate a third daily service from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to Tokyo-Haneda Airport starting 30 March 2025.
Subject to certain conditions, the airline plans to use its Airbus A330 aircraft with 297 seats on the routes.
The capacity must be fully used by 30 April 2025 and can be shared with Qantas subsidiaries like low-cost carrier, Jetstar.
At present, Jetstar flies daily from Brisbane and Cairns to Narita and also operates 11 weekly flights from Sydney, Brisbane and Cairns to Osaka.
Qantas International CEO Cam Wallace said the airline is “very pleased at today’s IASC determination”.
“With this third frequency, we plan to be the only airline to connect Australia’s three major east coast cities with Haneda Airport – right in the heart of downtown Tokyo,” he stated.
“Now that we have approval from the IASC, we will apply for slots at Haneda for flights from Melbourne and Brisbane and, subject to this process, plan to go on sale towards the end of the year.
“Japan is an incredibly popular destination for Australians and we are seeing very strong demand for our services. These new flights will make it even easier for Qantas customers to get to Tokyo.”
Today, the Flying Kangaroo launched its first-ever A380 flight to Johannesburg. Read more about that here.
