Qantas is often the go to option for travelling in and out of Australia. The Aussie national carrier offers by far the most extensive list of flights to all of the country major destinations and in many cases is the most convenient way to travel from abroad to secondary destinations on one booking. As the northern hemisphere moves towards summer Qantas is planning ahead for the southern summer. Some interesting route updates are in store for the Aussie carrier’s Asian network in late 2024. So let’s dive straight into the news.
About Qantas Asian Route Expansions in Late 2024
Qantas is preparing to scale up its flights in Asia for the end of 2024 holiday seasonality. The airline is planning to start a new flight and power up 2 other existing ones.
As for the new flight Qantas will start services between Brisbane and Manila just ahead of the holiday season. We don’t have many details on the new service as the carrier hasn’t disclosed a flight number nor has it announced the schedule of the flight. What we do know is that the BNE to MNL flight will operate 4 times per week and that this will be the first direct flight by QF between the cities in over 10 years. Services are subject to regulatory approval and should takeoff on October 28th 2024.
This new service will be offered aboard one of Qantas’ Airbus A330-200 or 300 planes. These jets feature a 2 class configuration with business and economy class.
Along with this all new flight Qantas is also planning to power up 2 of its existing services, to Singapore and Bengaluru. Flights from Brisbane and Sydney to Singapore will get new weekly frequencies. Specifically:
- Sydney to Singapore will go from 14 to 17 weekly flights starting December 11th 2024.
- Brisbane to Singapore will go from 7 to 9 weekly flights from October 27th 2024.
While services from Sydney to Bengaluru, India, are set to become daily from mid-December 2024 through March 2025 in order to accomodate the higher forecasted passenger numbers during the holiday seasonality.
While Sydney Shanghai Says God Bye
Qantas however hasn’t had the expected fortune on another Asian flight that will be departing the QF network. The carrier resumed flights to Shanghai only in October 2023 and has found itself forced to suspend the service starting July 28th 2024 due to a very weak demand on the route. The Chinese economy hasn’t been doing great and travellers haven’t started flying abroad in large numbers as they used to do prior to covid.
The suspension of flight QF129 from Sydney to Shanghai will free an Airbus A330. That exact A330 will be shifted to be used for the network expansions I mentioned above.
Alternatives On The Brisbane to Manila
To wrap up the post let’s take a look at what are your options is you prefer not to fly Qantas on the Brisbane to Manila route. That option is PAL (Philippine Airlines) which offers flights 4 times per week. PAL however uses its older A321s on most days which aren’t the most comfortable of solutions on a flight of this duration. It must be noted that these are the CEO version planes of the A321 and not the much nicer NEO. Only occasionally does PAL use wide bodies on this route.
As for price, Philippine Airlines tends to be cheaper in terms of price for a return flight from Brisbane to Manila. A flight will set you back around 1,100 AUD$, which is quite acceptable. Particularly considering this is still a direct service.
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