Airlink, the South African carrier, has had some busy months wrapping up deals with major international carriers. First, just a few weeks ago it secured a substantial investment by Qatar Airways with a connected codeshare agreement. Now another codeshare agreement comes to fruition as the airline signs one with Australian carrier Qantas. On the other end of this story, Qantas seems to be expecting quite a traffic uptick as they have rolled out on flights to Johannesburg their biggest aircraft.
Qantas and Airlink Join Forces on South African Routes
Qantas and Airlink will be collaborating to sell and operate internal, domestic, flights within South African borders. The Australian carrier will be applying its own flight number to Airlink flights operating out of the country’s busiest airport Johannesburg. Flights involved in the new codeshare agreement between the airlines include those departing JNB bound to:
- Bloemfontein
- Cape Town
- Durban
- East London
- George
- Hoedspruit
- Nelspruit
- Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth)
- Skukuza
Therefore these routes will be purchasable via Qantas’ sales channels and will allow passengers to travel seamlessly, connecting via Johannesburg international airport. The deal also includes some frequent flyer reciprocity. Passengers will be able to accrue loyalty miles on these codeshare flights contributing to their personal tally.
The World’s Largest Plane Now Flying One of the Loneliest Oceanic Routes
The Australian airline has some high expectations from its Sydney to Johannesburg route following this codeshare agreement. In fact, the airline is introducing on this service its largest plane to offer maximum seat capacity up to six times per week.
Johannesburg, therefore, becomes Qantas’ fourth Airbus A380 destination following:
- Los Angeles
- London
- Singapore
The mighty quad-jet offers seating for up to 485 passengers on a full load, distributed among:
- 14 First Class Suites – in a 1-1-1 layout
- 70 Business Class Seats – in a 1-2-1 layout
- 60 Premium Economy Seats – in a 2-3-2 layout
- 341 Economy Seats – in a 3-4-3 layout
This represents not only a massive leap forward in capacity on the Sydney to Johannesburg flight services, but also a huge step up in premium cabin capacity. Most noticeably First Class is now available on the route, while it wasn’t on the Boeing 787 services, Business class almost doubles its seat capacity, Economy, and Premium Economy more than double available seats.
The reasoning seems to be, along with the southern summer high season approaching, Qantas expects more Airlink passengers to transfer onto its flights to Sydney. Therefore, a larger aircraft will be necessary for the higher passenger volumes.
Finally, this is one of the loneliest routes in Qantas’ route network, along with QF27 to Santiago de Chile. The route brings the aircraft out in the middle of the south Indian Ocean to make the crossing to South Africa. It heads so far south that on clear days Antartica is visible from the aircraft.
All Qantas Airbus A380s Soon Back in Service
Qantas owns a total of 10 Airbus A380s. However, following the events of 2020 it only brought them gradually back into service. Currently there are 8 active with the remaining two though preparing to also return to service within the next 18 months. Qantas is one of the few airlines to have been able to really make the A380 work on some key strategic routes event after 2020.