Two pieces of interesting news involving Australia today which are both pleasant surprises. Qatar Airways is going to increase capacity to Perth, Australia by switching to an Airbus A380.
Fellow oneworld alliance airline Qantas are going to start serving Melbourne to San Francisco, which is the first time this route will be served direct by the carrier.
Qatar Sending The Airbus A380 To Perth
Perth is the capital of Western Australia, a resource rich state far from the populated eastern states. For a distance comparison, Perth to Sydney is almost the same length as Phoenix to New York.
From May 2018, Qatar will switch from the Boeing 777-300ER to the Airbus A380 which is very interesting. Is this in response to the forthcoming non-stop Qantas Perth to London flights?
It is possible as Qantas won’t offer First Class on the route as the Dreamliners they will use will feature Business Class, Premium and Economy only. It is quite a large capacity increase from Qatar too, so it is an interesting one.
Qantas Opening Melbourne to San Francisco
Also in the news today is the fact that Qantas will be opening a route from Melbourne to San Francisco. This is the first time the airline will fly this route.
According to various reports, this will commence towards the end of 2018. The plan is to switch the current daily Los Angeles service to serve LA 3 times per week and San Francisco 4 times per week.
A lot of Australian people prefer to avoid LAX where possible and enter the USA from other cities. This will capture that demand plus the demand from all the people who are visiting San Francisco from Melbourne.
Overall Thoughts
The games are afoot in Australia when it comes to Perth. I will be interested to see if there are any interesting sale fares to fill the Airbus A380 to Doha with Qatar Airways.
Hopefully the service will be a success, though I am a little dubious considering the population of Perth is just over 2 million people. The state is resource heavy and wealthy so perhaps this will ensure demand is profitable.
Qantas moving in to service San Francisco from Melbourne is the first of what should be several new routes being opened with the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners they are now receiving. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next!
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Featured image by Eric Salard via Wikimedia Commons.
