Qantas eyes flights to Athens, Seattle, Chicago, Las Vegas

Qantas has revealed some of the cities on its “short list” for new international routes as more Boeing 787 jets become available, both from the return of the A380 superjumbos and with new deliveries of 787s and Airbus A350-1000s within the next five years.

“We generally have 10 markets under analysis” at any time, says Qantas International CEO Cam Wallace, “and five under deep analysis.”

Seattle is high on that list, Wallace told Executive Traveller during a media briefing at Airbus HQ in Toulouse, France, citing the strength of home carrier and fellow Oneworld member Alaska Airlines.

“We have a good relationship with them and they’re very keen for us to fly there.”

Direct Sydney-Seattle flights would be almost the same distance as Qantas’ current trans-Pacific trek between Sydney and Vancouver.

Seattle’s long-standing appeal spans from being the home of US high-tech titans to a hub for Arctic and Alaskan cruises, as well as the natural outdoor attractions of the Pacific Northwest, while Alaska Airlines could provide a pipeline of inbound tourism. 

Chicago and Vegas

Chicago, which Qantas was on the cusp of launching as a direct flight from Brisbane in April 2020 before the pandemic took hold, remains on the radar.

“That’s another strong market where there’s demand in both directions,” Wallace observed, with Chicago also serving as a gateway to the mid-West and a hub for American Airlines.

As the only non-stop flight between Australia and Chicago, this would provide a valuable ‘monopoly route' for Qantas.

Wallace is also looking at Las Vegas, attracted by its combination of business travel for conferences and conventions as well as leisure trips.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reports Australia represented the second-largest number of overseas visitors in 2023 after the UK, with 264,900 visitors – a surging increase of 74.2% over the previous year, although still off the pace against the 358,000 Aussie visitors recorded in 2019.

Greece is the word…

For her part, Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson singled out Greece as a possible seasonal destination from Perth, joining Rome as a drawcard for the European summer and year-round flights to London and Paris.

“Every person I speak to at the moment is going to Greece,” she told media at the launch of Qantas’ direct Perth-Paris flights, and sees more red-tailed Boeing 787s as well as A350-1000s using Perth as a springboard to Europe.

Of course, it all comes down to “when we have the aircraft,” Hudson said, acknowledging the reality of a fleet which is currently short of meeting Qantas’ ambitions.

“There’s a whole bunch of markets like Greece and Germany that we’ve flown to before on a connecting basis that we’ll look at (for direct flights),” Wallace added.

An agile kangaroo

Wallace is also adopting a nimble and “agile” approach to extending the Qantas network: studying destinations and ‘city pairs’, crunching the numbers, and if those numbers stack up, moving fast to take advantage of it – but if demand later softens, being prepared to move on.

“We’ve got to be really thoughtful and quite purposeful about how we deploy that capacity, but also agile,” Wallace says. 

“If stuff doesn’t work, we’re not going to just kind of keep going. We’ve got to have to move the capital where we see the best returns.”

Hudson draws on her background as Qantas’ Chief Financial Officer when she describes aircraft as “mobile assets, and they’re pretty expensive assets to leave in a market that’s not performing.”

“We demonstrated it in China, we redeployed that capacity into India (and) into Singapore where the demand was.”

“And I think it’s really important that we do that because we’re very focused on continuing to grow profitability, but sustainably. And that’s really important to be able to afford the new aircraft that are coming.”

David Flynn travelled to Toulouse as a guest of Airbus and Qantas