Qatar Airways to restart Canberra flights
The Australian capital will finally Qatar’s return by the end of next year.
By David Flynn, December 16 2024
Qatar Airways will return to Canberra in December 2025, although these won’t be direct flights to and from the airline’s hub at Doha.
Instead, the national capital will be connected to the rest of the world via a daily Melbourne-Doha flights.
It’s a similiar arrangement to when Canberra first landed on the QR network map in 2018 before being scrapped in 2020, although in those days the Canberra route ran via Sydney.
By the end of 2025, a globe-striding Boeing 777 equipped with business class Qsuites and fast free Starlink WiFi will fly almost 14 hours from Doha to Melbourne, and after a short stopover will then make a much shorter hop up to Canberra.
A Qatar Airways spokesperson confirmed to Executive Traveller that Canberra will replace Adelaide as the add-on leg for its daily QR988/QR989 Melbourne service as of December 1, 2025, with Adelaide-Doha wound back to a aingle daily flight.
Plans for a previous Canberra-Melbourne-Doha route were announced but then scrapped in late 2022.
An early timetable listing for these flights is as follows:
- QR989 departs Canberra at 1.10pm and arrives into Melbourne at 2.25pm; after a two-hour layover, it’s wheels-up from Melbourne at 4.10pm and reaches Doha at 10.30pm.
- QR988 departs Doha at 9.30am, touching down into Melbourne at 5.55am the following day; at 7.40am the 777 takes off an 8.50am landing at Canberra.
Qatar Airways Group CEO Badr Mohammed Al-Meer, said that as “the political heart of Australia”, Canberra “rightly expects to be served by a range of international airlines, and I am proud that we are able to play our part in that.”
“Whether travelling for business, government services or leisure, our commitment to Australia, and to Canberra, will bring much needed healthy competition to the market and greater choice for passengers.”
For his part, Canberra Airport CEO Stephen Byron underlined the importance for these flights for not only Canberra but surrounding regions.
“This service not only provides over a million residents access to a global network spanning more than 170 destinations but also invites the world to rediscover Canberra’s unique cultural, educational, and tourism offerings.”
Qatar Airway’s Canberra flight is separate to the Melbourne-Doha flights now being sold by Virgin Australia.
And it’s perhaps no accident that this announcement comes as the national government’s Foreign Investment Review Board continues to review the proposal for the Gulf carrier to take a 25% stake in Virgin Australia.
01 Oct 2021
Total posts 23
Wait so does this mean the VA flight will not happen? If it still will and the Adelaide tag flight isn’t swapped for Canberra my understanding is that Melbourne will get another 2 Qatar flights (VA & the Canberra tag flight) along with the current direct service and the Adelaide tag flight.
4x flights to and from Melbourne will be crazy. Surely they should mix the aircraft wit some A350-1000s.
12 Dec 2012
Total posts 1031
The air service agreement allows both sides to have 28 weekly flights between DOH and the 4 major Australian ports (SYD/MEL/BNE/PER). Anywhere else in Australia, with ABF facilities, can be operated to an unlimited amount of times.
An additional 7 weekly flights to the major ports are allowed, provided that flight is to/via an unlimited port.
QRs daily flights to MEL, SYD, PER and BNE maxes out their 28 weekly flight allowance. Their direct to ADL is unlimited.
They started up the DOH-SYD-CBR flight pre covid in order to get an extra flight to SYD. After covid, they were going to resume that CBR service via MEL, but something happened a short time out from the route restarting and they started DOH-MEL-ADL instead. QR doesn't want people on MEL-ADL, but they are required to under the agreement, they only want that extra flight to MEL.
The entire VA tie up is in order to gain access to the Australian side of those limits. VA has not said anything about using the 7 additional option of the agreement.
With the VA agreement, QR will have 70 weekly flights to Australia (28 of which are, on paper, VA flights)
30 Aug 2013
Total posts 438
The article says the Adelaide tag flight is ending.
Melbourne will see 3 x QR flights daily. One existing direct, one tag to Canberra (switched from Adelaide) and one new VA flight. It was always the plan that Melbourne would go triple daily
01 Jun 2017
Total posts 18
I am keen to see how QR988/989 pan out in terms of timing for CBR. At the moment, it is DOH - MEL - ADL (02:00 - 23:30 and 06:00 - 07:00). This is the near empty flight that flies between MEL & ADL daily mentioned in some articles. Since CBR does not have curfew, likely the flight will land in CBR after midnight so that it is more conducive for CBR passengers with a short stop over in MEL. The return leg (QR989) is a convenient one. CBR - MEL - DOH (13:00 - 14:00 and 15:30 - 23:00) can be on similar timing with the one running through to ADL currently.
The third MEL flight for Qatar with VA tag- could it be DOH - MEL (08:00 - 05:30) and MEL - DOH (07:00 - 13:30) for good connectivity to Europe? With 3 daily fights, this will be in direct competition with EK. EK will be doing direct dash DXB - MEL 3x daily from 30 March 2025 after axing the third flight via SIN. DOH - SYD will be 2x daily with the flagship flight on A380. Perhaps 2 A380s will be deployed for SYD. Interesting to know why SYD is not 3x daily whilst MEL is heading to 3 daily.
03 Nov 2022
Total posts 4
AeroRoutes just published the new schedule for QR988/989:
QR988 DOH0830 – 0555+1MEL0740+1 – 0850+1CBR 77W D
QR989 CBR1310 – 1425MEL1610 – 2230DOH 77W D
Wouldn't surprise me if VA would operate a morning departure ex MEL around 6am similar to EK409
01 Dec 2012
Total posts 68
QR/VA doing SYD 3x daily is likley too difficult given slot constraints at peak times and the dreaded curfew. MEL is less constrained and curfew-free, enabling flexibility of arrivals and departures that also work with connections in Doha.
04 Dec 2013
Total posts 156
Yet again, a cynical ploy to get around capacity limits.
If they actually wanted to serve Canberra, they'd serve it direct. It's hard to believe a well-priced, well-timed daily direct connection from Australia's per capita wealthiest city, to the Middle East and Europe couldn't succeed.
As it is, those Canberrans who want to spend two hours in transit before they even leave Australia have a smorgasbord of options from Sydney or Melbourne.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
14 May 2022
Total posts 2
Perhaps, but I will appreciate on the return leg not having to collect my bags and then physically change terminals (which at SYD is a real hassle). While non-stop would be lovely, this is still a big improvement on no service.
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