Johannesburg is back on the Qantas map, and the future could hold flights from both Sydney and Perth.
Direct flights between Perth and Johannesburg could return this year, but under the wing of Qantas rather than South African Airlines.
The Flying Kangaroo has long harboured ambitions to take on the 11 hour trek – and now that a drawn-out dispute with Perth Airport over fees levied on the airline has been put to rest, airport CEO Kevin Brown says it’s time to “put the Qantas planes back up in the sky and flying to new destinations.”
And among the first of those is Johannesburg, with Brown last week telling 6PR’s Oliver Peterson that in addition to the launch of Perth-Rome flights in June.
“There are many other opportunities we’re speaking to Qantas and other airline partners about whether its Jo’burg and other direct European cities and other Asian connections – South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, and India for that matter – there’s a lot of opportunities.”
Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce has previously flagged the prospect of direct flights between Perth and Johannesburg – a route which in pre-Covid times was exclusive to South African Airways.
However, that long-troubled airline has only just emerged from bankruptcy in September 2021, after being grounded for more than 18 months, and could still merge with struggling Kenya Airways to create what Kenya’s president described in January as a new ‘Pan-African airline with unmatched continental reach and global coverage.”
Qantas initially hoped to challenge SAA on the Perth-Johannesburg route with four direct Airbus A330 flights a week in late 2018, running on a seasonal basis from November-March.
However, in June 2018 the airline revealed it had scrapped those plans due to ongoing disputes with Perth Airport – particularly with regard to Qantas’ desire to run its Perth flights from the international wing of its integrated Terminal 3-Terminal 4 hub, rather than Perth’s dedicated T1 international terminal used by other airlines.
“We’re very keen on South Africa (and) we think it’s a good growth opportunity for us,” Joyce told the Reuters Next online forum in early 2021.
“And if we can resolve our dispute with Perth Airport, we will start the Perth-Jo’burg service, which is on our list of new routes, and we think that will be very successful,” he added.
The Dreamliner offers a far superior experience on the 14-hour trek, due not only to its superior seats in business, premium economy and economy but a quieter and smoother ride which also reduces the impact of jetlag through features such as a lower cabin altitude and higher humidity.
Speaking with Executive Traveller in December 2021, Joyce said Qantas would add three new Boeing 787s to its fleet from July, “which opens up an opportunity for us to expand the international network,” adding that the Dreamliners “have huge capabilities to do routes that we hadn’t considered before.”
The airline’s focus for 2022 will primarily be on leisure travel and the ‘visiting friends and relatives’ market, which is enjoying a post-pandemic surge following almost two years of lockdown.
“What we’re doing at the moment is picking routes where we know there’s a huge VFR traffic base,” Joyce explained.
“India is a big market for that, and that’s why we went in… and we were right, there was huge demand.”
“And with Rome, with the big Italian communities in Melbourne and Sydney we thought the peak summer season would support the basis of that service and then we can tap into tourism on top of that.”
“So watch this space,” Joyce teased, “because we have a range of new international routes to announce over the next couple of months.”
Article from ExecutiveTraveller.com