New York has long been an important market for Qantas, but they didn’t have the planes to fly there non-stop. For years they offered continuing service from Los Angeles to New York JFK on their own aircraft.
- Yes, Qantas actually flew the LA – New York domestic flight. It used to be a Boeing 747, and then changed to a Boeing 787 in fall 2018.
- No you could not buy the flight if you wanted to travel domestically. Qantas couldn’t sell tickets just for that segment.
- Qantas was actually fined by the Department of Transportation for selling the flight in conjunction with international travel other than Australia – U.S. (they sold the flight in conjunction with Air Tahiti Nui from Papeete to Los Angeles, for instance).
Stretched thin as they’ve rebuilt their route network, Qantas hasn’t restarted Los Angeles – New York. They’re planning to fly non-stop to New York using new Airbus A350-1000 aircraft potentially as soon as 2025.
Until then they have a new solution for serving the New York market. They will fly Sydney – Auckland – New York JFK starting in June 2023.
- That has them flying in direct competition with Air New Zealand’s new Auckland – New York JFK flight
- This could represent an attractive single-airline route to New York, but it’s not obviously better than flying Sydney or Melbourne to Dallas on Qantas, clearing customs, and connecting on joint venture partner American Airlines to New York LaGuardia. Flight timing will matter here.
To the tune of “I Still Call Australia Home” (HT: Donald W)
A song about Qantas (you know the tune).
My @smh cartoon. pic.twitter.com/rggXL8zL6t— The Cathy Wilcox (@cathywilcox1) August 23, 2022
Qantas will operate the flight with a Boeing 787-9 aircraft. This may serve the Sydney market well, but for other departure points that are international gateways it’ll hardly be a slam dunk. Qantas previously served Auckland – Los Angeles non-stop, but ended that route a decade ago.
Update: flights have been loaded:
- Sydney – Auckland, 10:05am – 3:15pm, QF3 Sunday/Wednesday/Friday
Auckland – New York JFK, 5:00pm – 5:15pm, QF3 Sunday/Wednesday/Friday
New York JFK – Auckland, 7:30pm – 5:00am+2, QF4 Sunday/Wednesday/Friday
Auckland – Sydney, 6:30am – 8:05 a.m, QF4 Sunday/Tuesday/Friday
I’ve never been to Australia
I don’t see these flights on Alaska or AA 🙁
Are they still planning on starting the ORD-BNE service? They’d slated that to start 1H of 2020 but we all know what happened there. I’ve heard little about it since then.