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Qantas has defied the economic downturn in the US by achieving record fare sales to Australia in the past fortnight.
The Australian airline, offering deeply discounted fares and riding on the promotional success of the G'Day USA festival, announced it had a 160 per cent rise in bookings from the US to Australia compared with the same period a year ago.
"The past two weeks has set an all-time high," Wally Mariani, Qantas' senior executive vice president, The Americas and Pacific, told AAP.
Qantas offered Americans a US$380 ($759.69) each way fare to coincide with the G'Day USA festival held in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York in the past two weeks.
Last year during the festival Qantas also achieved record sales, but Mariani said this year the airline eclipsed that benchmark by 160 per cent.
The G'Day festival, designed to promote Australian trade, film, tourism, food, wine and fashion, was headlined by Australia's A-List with Nicole Kidman, Baz Luhrmann, Eric Bana, Rachel Griffiths and tennis great Rod Laver attending events.
Qantas launched its new advertising campaign in the US on January 10 to coincide with the G'Day events.
It worked in tandem with a Tourism Australia campaign launched on January 12.
Tourism Australia reported a 70 per cent rise in traffic to its Australia.com website during the G'Day festival.
"Everyone knows the American market is very soft at the moment," Mariani said.
"All world markets are soft and we weren't hoping anywhere near this result, but it was above our wildest dreams."
The surge in bookings comes as Virgin and American airline giant, Delta, prepare to challenge Qantas and United Airlines on the US-Australia route.
"I never, ever want to underestimate our competition, but I'm very confident with our resources we will keep our market share and hopefully the market will grow," Mariani said.
"At the end of the day, Qantas still knows Australia best.
"We still have more schedules than anybody else, the best in-flight product, the best lounges in Australia and the best network in Australia."
Qantas also achieved a surge in bookings in the past two weeks in the San Francisco market after flying one of its new A380 super jumbo jets to the city as part of G'day USA.
The event generated huge publicity with the local press, and Mariani said Qantas achieved a 204 per cent jump in bookings to Australia in San Francisco compared to the same fortnight a year ago.
"It shows Australia is still a very popular destination for Americans," Mariani said.
- AAP
