American Airlines will replace a portion of Qantas’s flights between Los Angeles and Australia from December, freeing up an aircraft for the Flying Kangaroo to resume services to San Francisco.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce and American chief executive Doug Parker announced the new routes on the sidelines of the International Air Transport Association annual general meeting in Miami on Tuesday.
American will operate the Sydney-Los Angeles route from December 17 with a daily service operated by three-class Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. The airline last served Australia with its own aircraft in the early 1990s, when it briefly operated a four times weekly LAX-Honolulu-Sydney service using Douglas DC-10 trijets.
Meanwhile, Qantas is returning to San Francisco from December 20 with three-class Boeing 747-400s, bringing back a destination dropped from its network in 2011 when it began services to Dallas-Fort Worth.
The flights would initially operate on peak days and increase to six times a week from January 2016.
Interestingly, the joint statement from both airlines announcing the new services also notes: “The enhanced relationship also provides opportunities for future growth into trans-Pacific markets not currently served by either airline, such as New Zealand.”
A table detailing the two airlines’ new joint services, see below, also reveals that Qantas is dropping one of its currently three times weekly Melbourne-LAX 747 QF95/96 services, as well as four of the current seven times weekly QF17/18 Sydney-LAX 747 flights. Qantas introduced the additional evening QF95/96 MEL-LAX services as a permanent part of its schedule in January this year. Under the new agreement it will continue to operate daily A380 services from Sydney and Melbourne to LA.
Overall the new services and schedule changes will see a net nine per cent increase in capacity offered by the two airlines between Australia and the USA, with a six per cent net increase on the Sydney-LAX route.
“San Francisco is now the most popular onward destination for Qantas’s customers travelling to the US and we’re thrilled to be going back. We know there is a strong demand for direct flights, particularly from our corporate clients who will save about four hours each way by not having to connect through LAX,” Joyce said in a statement.
“We expect to see the strong growth in US visitors coming to Australia continue, because of the strengthening US economy but also because of the investment AA will make in promoting their new route. The world’s largest airline will be talking a lot more about Australia in their home market, and that’s great news for tourism.”
The new arrangements will also see the two airlines move to a “revenue share” agreement covering codesharing on each other’s Australia-US flights.
Summary of North American network and frequency changes
Route |
Current |
Future
|
|
SYD-LAX |
QF A380 – 7 per week QF 747 – 7 per week |
QF A380 – 7 per week QF 747 – 3 per week AA B777 – 7 per week |
|
MEL-LAX |
QF A380 – 7 per week QF 747 – 3 per week |
QF A380 – 7 per week QF 747 – 2 per week |
|
BNE-LAX |
QF 747 – 7 per week |
QF 747 – 7 per week |
|
LAX-JFK |
QF 747 – 7 per week |
QF 747 – 7 per week |
|
SYD-DFW |
QF A380 – 6 per week |
QF A380 – 6 per week |
|
SYD-SFO |
QF 747 – 6 per week |
