Aviation geeks get excited because, in the absence of international travel, Qantas is revving up the engines of its Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner and taking off between Sydney and Perth.
Qantas is taking off between Sydney and Perth on its Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners, bringing the iconically smooth flying experience to trips within Australia.
As well as this, Qantas customers can now book seven new domestic routes and travel on more widebody aircraft between major capital cities to help meet strong demand for domestic travel across Australia.
Who’s ready to explore Australia?
Dreamliner takes off to Perth
Usually used for long-haul international flights including Perth-London, the 236-seat Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner will begin operating up to nine Sydney to Perth flights per week.
Customers will also see more widebody aircraft with Business Suites on flights between the East Coast capital cities into Perth and Darwin.
Widebody Qantas Airbus A330-200 aircraft, which serviced international routes into Asia, will operate on more flights into Darwin from Sydney and Brisbane and Perth from Sydney and Melbourne.
Qantas says these will be added to the A330s already flying on east-west routes.
New domestic routes
The new routes – Townsville to Adelaide/Melbourne/Sydney, Adelaide to Cairns/Hobart, Sydney-Uluru and Perth-Gold Coast – provide direct connections and reduce travel time for customers.
They bring the total number of routes Qantas and Jetstar have added since the start of the pandemic to 45.
Five of the routes will be operated by Embraer E190 regional jets as part of QantasLink’s partnership with Alliance Airlines.
The first Qantas flights operated by the 94-seat E190s took off today between Adelaide, Darwin and Alice Springs.
Qantas Domestic and International CEO Andrew David said the new routes would support the growing demand for domestic tourism.
“As most international travel remains off limits for now, Australians are taking more regular holidays within the country and we expect these new direct flights to key tourism destinations will be popular with travellers,” said Mr David.
“Our customers now have 45 more routes to fly than we had pre-COVID making it even easier for them to get to their next holiday or business meeting. Previously, travelling between these cities meant a connecting flight in the middle, but now they can fly direct and save at least an hour in the process.”
The additional flying will see Qantas’ capacity exceed 100 per cent of pre-COVID levels in the coming months and the Group’s market share around 70 per cent.
Fares are available from today, with the airline offering special fares including $139 on Adelaide-Hobart, $179 on Sydney-Townsville and $229 Perth-Gold Coast.
Special fares are available at qantas.com or through your local travel agents, until 11:59pm 27 May, unless sold out prior.