After the success of its first six direct return flights in January 2015 between Sydney and Vancouver, Qantas has made the decision to resume service for the busy summer and winter holidays. The direct service proved to be popular with both Australian and Canadian passengers and this upcoming schedule will offer greater flexibility with a switch from two to three flights per week.
Under the revised air services agreement, both countries’ carriers will immediately be able to operate 26,500 seats a week between Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to the major gateway cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth – an increase of 18 percent on the routes.
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Qantas previously served Vancouver as an extension of its flights to San Francisco on a short season basis from summer 2006 through the winter 2007/2008 schedule. Through this period the carrier offered 37,900 seats in and out of the Canadian city.
China Airlines will be the first member of the SkyTeam alliance to offer flights to New Zealand’s South Island and will enable various connection opportunities in Sydney to the services of other partners of the grouping.
The total traffic for the four days is an increase of 36 per cent over the same period at the end of Eid Al Fitr in 2013, when 133,007 passengers took an Etihad Airways flight.
Air New Zealand and All Nippon Airways will both introduce flights with the Boeing 787-9 early next month, with Etihad Airways, Scoot, United Airlines and Virgin Atlantic Airways also due to the fly the new stretched variant of the Dreamliner before the end of the year.
The expanded Brisbane schedule will boost capacity on the route by 2,166 seats a week and will support the growing demand for connectivity to North America from Queensland. North America is actually Queensland’s third largest tourism market and the increase in services support the 4.2 per cent increase in passenger numbers experienced in 2013.
The two destinations join Dubai in the network of Cebu Pacific Air's long-haul division which flies Airbus A330-300s configured in an all-Economy, 436 seat arrangement.
Our own analysis of MIDT data shows that last year around two thirds of the passengers flying with the airline from or to Auckland actually ended their journeys at other locations than Guangzhou.
Qantas launched flights between Sydney and Dallas in May 2011 and currently utilises a Boeing 747-400ER on the route. The additional range of the A380 over the 747 it replaces will see the return service operate direct to Sydney rather than via Brisbane.
The Abu Dhabi-based airline’s first Airbus A380 will operate commercially to London Heathrow from December 2014, while its first Boeing 787-9s will debut on routes to Düsseldorf from December this year and then to Washington DC and Mumbai from January 2015.
