Passengers flying across the Tasman are in line for more choice and better fares as airline capacity returns and new routes open.
Qantas will by the end of the year operate more flights over the Tasman than it did before the pandemic and with a new aircraft soon coming into its fleet once every three weeks it will soon have the equipment to start new transtasman links.
Chief executive Alan Joyce is in New Zealand for the launch of his airline’s Auckland-New York flights today and said this was part of a renewed commitment to this market that would also result in expanded transtasman operations.
He has floated the idea of Qantas flights between Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast and Auckland and taking on Air New Zealand on Auckland-Perth flights. The Australian carrier is investigating other routes not flown now.
New, smaller but highly efficient aircraft will make that flying viable and not only will provide more destination options but will push down prices, which have been sky-high on the Tasman routes since Virgin Australia’s collapse in 2020 and the decision not to yet restore flights between main centres.
Any Sunshine Coast flights would challenge rival Air NZ, which operates a three-times-a-week seasonal service to Maroochydore, one of its nine destinations in Australia, and one it now has to itself.
Likewise, it is the only airline flying non-stop on the Auckland-Perth route but uses wet lease Spanish charter firm Wamos to operate the route. Newcomer Batik Air Malaysia will, however, offer some competition from late August flying a Boeing 737Max on the 9500km route six times a week.
The Tasman is by far the most important international air route for this country because of friends and family links and both countries being popular holiday destinations.
Stats NZ figures out yesterday show that of the 221,300 visitor arrivals in April, 49 per cent were from Australia. Of the 210,000 Kiwis returning from overseas trips in April, 46 per cent were coming back from Australia.
Transtasman flights make up about a third of Air New Zealand’s revenue, a smaller proportion for Qantas but provide important feeder traffic into its long haul network. Right now both airlines are enjoying record or near record yields on transtasman flights.
Qantas traces its links to New Zealand back to 1941, and is investing heavily in New Zealand, which Joyce said last night was an ‘’amazing market and an amazing country”.
Profitability and the airline’s balance sheet were the strongest in its 102-year history and Joyce said the best is to come.
‘’This next age of Qantas is going to be the best age in our history, [for] an airline that is kicking goals and is investing heavily in New Zealand and an airline that sees this as a very important market.’’
The airline’s lounge at Auckland Airport is about to be rebuilt with 40 per cent more space and a new look as part of the airline’s $110m lounge revamp across its network.
The airline operates Boeing 737s and widebody Airbus A330s on the Tasman with 140 flights a week now. This will increase to 154 flights a week from late October.
Joyce said what happens in the years beyond that will be especially exciting.
“With these super-efficient [planes] we could put in routes that we never thought were viable before. A huge network is going to open up and it’s going to give customers in New Zealand more choices and more destinations.”
Kiwis from more places will be able to connect to an ever-growing network out of Sydney, including India, and later this decade non-stop to London and New York as part of Project Sunrise.
As part of the new approach to the Tasman, Qantas will in October launch new flights between Wellington and Brisbane withEmbraer 190s with 94 seats, half the number of other single-aisle planes on the route and an aircraft it has never before flown to the country. It is a sign of more to come.
When the service launches Qantas will operate more services out of Wellington than Air New Zealand, which is also investing heavily in planes ($3.5b in the next five years) but is waiting for them to be delivered. Next week Qantas restores services from Melbourne and Brisbane to Queenstown.
Joyce told the Business Herald that Qantas had access to the Embraer aircraft through its 20 per cent shareholding in Alliance Airlines, which is expanding the fleet of the Brazilian-made planes.
“We’ve been using them mainly domestically and were blown away by how good they were. We started doing flights from Darwin to Dili [in Timor-Leste] and that went so well that we’ve decided to start Brisbane to Wellington,” he said.
As part of a massive fleet order, the airline is also buying 20 Airbus A220s, which are smaller than the A320/21s used by Air NZ and Qantas subsidiary Jetstar across the Tasman, and 20 larger A321XLRs. There are an additional 94 purchase rights. With Jetstar and including purchase rights, the Qantas group has 299 narrow-body Airbus aircraft on order over the next decade.
Joyce said the A321XLR (extra long range) could operate medium-haul flights out of Auckland.
“We are potentially going to have two configurations, a domestic configuration and then a lie-flat bed configuration that’s used for the longer sectors like an Auckland to Perth.”
He hasn’t put a time frame on new routes across the Tasman.
Restoring capacity across the Tasman had been hit last year by operational problems at home. Joyce told a Trans Tasman Business Circle event that Qantas last year ‘‘dropped the ball’' as it tried to restore capacity too quickly to meet soaring demand when it didn’t have the staff or planes to operate up to standard.
The airline was castigated for delays, cancellations and lost luggage when passengers were paying high fares.
“The operational problems we had last meant we just put 25 aircraft on the ground. They could have been flying on the Tasman and they could have been flying domestically and that would have lowered the airfares faster,” he told the Herald.
‘’It’s just taken us a while to be able to put those aircraft back in.’’
Grant Bradley joined the Herald since 1993. He is the Business Herald’s deputy editor and covers aviation and tourism.
Alaska Air has taken over and already deals are being offered to boost traffic