Qantas launches Melbourne-Honolulu flights

Qantas will begin direct flights between Melbourne and Honolulu from May 2025, complementing its popular Sydney-Honolulu route and boosting the overall number of red-tailed jets trekking between Australia and the USA. 

However, Jetstar will end its own twice-weekly Melbourne-Honolulu service from 30 April 2025 to make way for Qantas, with the Boeing 787 set to move onto another long-range route.

“Our new service ensures continued connectivity for Melbournians to Hawaii, while enabling Jetstar to redeploy its 787 aircraft to other destinations and long-haul routes,” explains Qantas International CEO Cam Wallace.

Qantas’ new Melbourne-Honolulu A330 flights will run every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday beginning May 1 2025, with tickets for the 10-hour journey now on sale.

• QF105 will depart Melbourne at 5:05pm, touching down in Honolulu at 7:40am 
• QF106 will leave Honolulu at 9:40am to reach Melbourne at 5:15pm

Kick-off fares for a return economy ticket from Melbourne to Honolulu will start from $1,049, with business class from $5,699.

If you’d rather spend your Qantas Points on that tropical getaway, the airline says its controversial Classic Plus reward seats will be available from 61,900 points (plus $430) for economy return, and 297,300 points (plus $1,240) for business class return.

And should you happen to spy any of the original Classic Reward seats, jump on them – they’re a steal at 31,500 points one-way in economy and 82,000 points in business class.

Qantas will fly its A330 three times a week between Melbourne and Honolulu.

This is definitely an upgrade for travellers at the pointy end, with Qantas offering  flatbeds in business class compared to Jetstar's premium economy-like experience.

And by the time these flights take off in May 2025, the Qantas A330s should also have fast free WiFi to keep passengers connected on the ten-hour trans-Pacific trek.

The switch from Jetstar to Qantas arguably reflects the challenges of a soft AUD-USD exchange rate and broader cost-of-living pressures, making this route a better fit for the deeper-pocketed Qantas demographic.

More alignment between Qantas and Jetstar routes could be on the way, Wallace told Executive Traveller on the sidelines of the airline’s recent launch of direct flights between Perth and Paris.

“We are working in collaboration a lot more with Jetstar. So with our Asian network, and frankly our trans-Tasman network as well, we’re saying ‘what are the markets’?”

“Which markets best suit Jetstar? What are the markets that best suit Qantas mainline, and what are markets that could have a dual-brand approach?”

“So there’s a lot more collaboration happening on those short and mid-haul international markets than has probably ever happened before.”

ALongside the announcement of Melbourne-Honolulu flights, Qantas is also today unleashing a seven-day ‘Red Tail Sale’ across more than 30 routes to Canada, the USA and South America, for a range of travel periods between October 2024 and June 2025.