Qantas will launch direct flights between Sydney and Vancouver in January 2015 to cater for strong demand during the peak of the North American winter holiday season.
Departing Sydney on Wednesdays and Saturdays with same-day connections available from the major Australian capital cities, passengers can return from Vancouver on Sundays and Thursdays.
The seasonal Vancouver flights will run from January 3-22 in 2015 on a reconfigured Boeing 747 aircraft with fully-flat Skybeds in business class, plus A380-style seats in premium economy and economy.
In the New Year, QF75 takes to Sydney's skies at 2:50pm, reaching Vancouver at 9:45am on the same calendar day.
On the return, QF76 is wheels-up at 11:45pm – touching down in Sydney at the civilised time of 10am two calendar days later.
Update: On top of these planned seasonal flights to Vancouver, Qantas is seeking travel rights between Australia and Canada on an ongoing basis.
Passengers on the Red Roo's new Vancouver flights can connect onwards within Canada to destinations such as Toronto, Ottawa and Winnipeg through a new codeshare partnership with Canuck airline WestJet.
“North America is a key market for Qantas and these direct services reinforce our commitment both to this market and to taking advantage of seasonal peaks, including to destinations that aren’t necessarily on our network all-year round,” said Qantas International CEO Simon Hickey.
Qantas will also boost its services between Melbourne and Los Angeles from January next year, with three extra weekly return flights on a Boeing 747 aircraft.
Already a staple of The Flying Kangaroo's existing Melbourne-Los Angeles flights, the Airbus A380 superjumbo will make a move from Hong Kong to Dallas on September 29, bringing the world's largest passenger aircraft onto the world's longest route.
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Chris is a a former contributor to Executive Traveller.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
17 Aug 2012
Total posts 2199
I did not see that coming.
07 Aug 2012
Total posts 192
This helps to explain the WS partnership too.
QFF
12 Apr 2013
Total posts 1564
Indeed surprised me as well
04 Sep 2014
Total posts 4
Great news! Come on Qantas lets continue to thrive!
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
08 Dec 2011
Total posts 29
Is Qantas turning into some kind of Charter airline?
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
28 Sep 2012
Total posts 131
All airlines do charter work.... look at BA and the revenue they pick up across Europe doing charter work.
25 Sep 2013
Total posts 1242
There's nothing wrong with running a few charters. Would you prefer QF to not seize the opportunity and simply park their aircraft?
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
19 Feb 2014
Total posts 439
Some exciting news from Qantas - wonder what Air Canada thinks of this considering they have monopoly.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
20 Sep 2013
Total posts 462
About time. ..why they continiue fly the A380 and the 747 is to Asia is beyond stupid.For once a good move hopefully it will delay the end.And while only seasonal may be add the aircraft to daily South American departures as it sure will make more money than any Asia sector.
12 Dec 2012
Total posts 1031
I would prefer the 747 on routes like NRT and SIN because they have premium economy and QF [stupidly] refuses to put it on the A330s.
12 Jun 2013
Total posts 732
>The seasonal Vancouver flights will run from January 3-22 in 2015
That's not a very long season right there. It barely seems worth it.
04 Sep 2014
Total posts 4
my bet would be that they are testing the waters would not be suprised to see a 2-3 month service in 2016 eventually moving to year round
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
28 Sep 2012
Total posts 131
Agreed. Test it now using the 747, then they can make plans for a daily or 5-weekly with new 787 metal?
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
19 Feb 2014
Total posts 439
A332 NEO ;)
12 Dec 2012
Total posts 1031
SYD-YVR 12484 km
A332 range (as quoted by Airbus) 13,400 km
A338 (332neo) 13,800 km
It would be able to do the east bound run, but as with the 744ER to DFW, is likely to run into wind issues on the return. Would likely have to stop in HNL on the way back.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
20 Sep 2013
Total posts 462
Whats wrong with that.I personally would love th odd stopover.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
20 Sep 2013
Total posts 462
Whats wrong with that.I personally would love th odd stopover.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
31 Aug 2012
Total posts 212
That was my reaction also. I think this route (with better connection arrangements to US destinations too), all year, could be a winner for Qantas, and God knows, they need a few! Air Canada has this sewn up at the moment; a bit of competition would be good.
28 Oct 2011
Total posts 645
as other observant people on other sites have pointed out...notice the aircraft has about 1.5 days in Vancouver (arrive Sat morn/depart Sun night...arrive Weds morn/depart Thurs night)... thus deducing that maybe QF have picked up a charter contract ex Vancouver for some short return services within that downtime period (im thinking a cruise contract) for the month of Jan
30 Aug 2013
Total posts 438
Or that they have no crew to operate an immediate return so allowing the same crew to rest and operate the return 1.5 days later.
(Wouldn't flying over deadheading crew be a better way to do this though?)
07 Aug 2012
Total posts 192
Agreed that the long turnaround at YVR is for crew rest. QF must have found it is cheaper to park the aircraft for that long rather than pay for a crew to deadhead SYD-YVR.
My understanding is that deadheading crew are paid whilst deadheading so that would nearly double crew costs for the route.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
04 Oct 2012
Total posts 149
Dead heading crew are paid whilst deadheading, it's a duty. But even if QF deadheaded a crew over to Vancouver, they still would need to have rest there, as they have just flown across the pacific... and couldn't operate back that day. There is a limit of 20 hours for crew duty, so this would far exceed that. By deadheading crew, they wouldn't save anything.
12 Dec 2012
Total posts 1031
They could position crew up from LAX.
08 May 2013
Total posts 18
Great to see Qantas trying some new routes internationally. Hope they can make this work and maybe extend the season into the future!
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
10 Jan 2013
Total posts 698
Yes, it's good that Qantas is returning to Canada, if only for part of the year. (It has been a while since 2008, and direct this time to boot!).
04 Nov 2012
Total posts 212
Had a quick gander no prices up yet.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
08 Nov 2011
Total posts 121
They have been loaded... It is quite expensive. Y starts at about $3000 RT and J roughly $8000.
04 Nov 2012
Total posts 212
Yikes, much cheaper to go via HKG and what a great city to visit with a stopover going CX.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
04 Mar 2013
Total posts 47
One would think that if you can afford to go ski in In Canada - perhaps at some of the elite ski resorts in the world - the prices for the airfare probably aren't a major concern.
12 Jun 2013
Total posts 732
alatar: On the contrary, have you seen how Canadian skiing prices compare to Australian ones? Skiing in the Northern hemisphere is modestly priced compared to the (vastly worse, ridiculously expensive) skiing in Australia.
At least, if you can get a decent (<$2000) deal on your airfare. At $3K it's vastly overpriced, you'd be better off going to the Alps, or the US.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
26 May 2014
Total posts 463
For those that don't live in Sydney, one stop to YVR with CX is going to be difficult for QF to beat. $2400 rtn from Perth in January.
21 Dec 2012
Total posts 62
A week ago I was on the tarmac at Vancouver looking out the window at an Air NZ plane thinking if they can fly here and make money, why can't Qantas. Whistler is like a suburb of Sydney there are that many Australian accents.
31 Aug 2013
Total posts 60
AirNZ has a monopoly on NZ to North America direct (and it's a lot of flight per day!). Plus having the 777 helps a lot with their markets, as they can redistribute them by size and frequency as needed.
21 Jul 2012
Total posts 128
NZ and AC are also partners, so there's feed from the rest of Canada for the NZ flight.
21 Apr 2013
Total posts 34
finally alan good on ya mate
11 Mar 2012
Total posts 180
So just 6 return flights? That's a shame!
16 Sep 2014
Total posts 3
Not that exciting! Only 6 flights in total in each direction!
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
11 Aug 2014
Total posts 51
shame, i booked flights with air canada to vancover on the 3-1-15 just a few days ago. considering swapping tghe bookings
25 Sep 2013
Total posts 1242
OT but the B744 remains one sexy beast.
AA
16 Sep 2014
Total posts 1
I was excited to hear this news and then I see it is only for 3 weeks! What is the point? Having to train contract staff to handle them at YVR for 3 weeks is crazy.
AC has a monopoly on that route and Qantas needs to get in on the action. They have been in and out of Vancouver for years and it would be great to see them back with some consistency!
12 Feb 2014
Total posts 229
This is the emerging strategy of better utilisation of current assets in action. To date QF has offered the same flight schedule to a route, regardless of seasonal demand. This has meant poor loads for extended periods resulting in big losses. Now they take a 747 from here and they put it there for a fixed period, where it will fly at 85% load, rather than 70%. If the demand holds up, they extend the frequency or the season or both. Management are obviously looking at how it can keep planes flying for maximum time at maximum load. That requires nimble and responsive deployment of the right aircraft into the right markets at the right time.
For Vancouver, once ski season ends they can simply book PAX onto LAX or Hawaii services with the onwards courtesy of Alaska, American or WestJet. Smart business, Alan.
If they had 787-9s to play with they could scale back the capacity from their big birds and keep the service operational and at lower cost, providing even more flexibility. Blessed be that day.
21 Jul 2012
Total posts 128
Also, why hasn't QF been doing this all along? I'm not in business, but it seems to me that optimizing asset utilization is a fairly basic concept (at least if you want to turn a profit).
21 Jul 2012
Total posts 128
I imagine ultra long-haul routes carrying predominantly lesiure passengers are hard to operate profitably. YVR is not a premium destination, so the front cabin in particular would be hard to fill. AC can do it because they feed the YVR flight with passengers from across the country, but it would be a much bigger challenge for QF.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
18 Jun 2013
Total posts 4
Now they'll just have to pray for snow ;-)
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
20 Sep 2013
Total posts 462
Right on especially over the last four years.
12 Feb 2014
Total posts 229
For the QF sales team, I'd be thinking 'Great! We have six flights to fill, let's go at it'. Should be easy.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
01 Aug 2014
Total posts 6
I hope they make a go of this - at a reasonable price! I flew MEL-LAX-YVR in Oct 2012 with QF / QF codeshare. What a nightmare getting through LAX was!!! - Going thru immigration and customs just so I could walk (briskly!) to the Alaskan terminal to barely make my connection. (At least thankfully, they could re-check my luggage from Tom Bradley).
Yes, AC have an excellent non-stop from Australia, but my boss wouldn't come at the $800 price difference :-(
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
31 Aug 2012
Total posts 212
Yes LAX is a nightmare if you get there at the 'wrong' time. Not sure what the right time might be! I am doing QF107 to JFK next week and not looking forward in the least to clearing customs at LAX. I wonder if any readers here have cleared immig. & customs at YVR lately?
21 Jul 2012
Total posts 128
Anything is better than LAX!
YVR has US preclearance, but I'm not sure if you can do an international to trans-border transit without entering Canada first. It would seem logical, but things don't always work that way up here in the Great White North.
If you have to do both Canadian and US customs it's probably no faster than LAX. On the plus side, you'll get nicer agents and more miles using YVR.
QF
06 Dec 2013
Total posts 5
Agree! Hate going through LAX. Now, for the next good news, please oh please reinstate the SFO direct flights!!
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
31 Aug 2012
Total posts 212
QF is pretty locked into LAX now unfortunately. UA is your best bet for SF now I guess.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
20 Sep 2013
Total posts 462
LAX is no worse than Sydney Int terminal on any weekend mourning.Quit complaining.
QF
06 Dec 2013
Total posts 5
Indeed I do feel in mourning going through either. Luckily I'm not in Sydney.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
31 Aug 2012
Total posts 212
You have to be joking, No Name! At SYD morning peak hours, through in 5 minutes usually. In fact, from wheels down to my home living room is 1 hour! LAX morning peak: 700-1000 passengers ahead of you in the queue, few immigration officers on duty, moving at glacial speed. Complainta aplenty, No Name!!
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
28 Sep 2012
Total posts 131
I know this is a post several months later, but have to say, the new experience at TBIT at LAX is one of awe and shock at the vast improvement.
New passport machines in the arrivals area and luggage arriving improvements?
Impressive! Wheels down to luggage transer desk in about 20 minutes.
Just need to do something about some of the domestic terminals.
Jetstar Airways - Qantas Frequent Flyer
02 Feb 2012
Total posts 17
watch Air Canada - it is a brutal airline - it will slash airfares to try and force QF out of the route - it has done it before. I am so please that this is at last happeneing. I know Westjet doesnt have business class, but its not a bad airline.
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