Qantas Reveals Significant Expansion of International Capacity

Australian airline Qantas unveiled on August 21, 2023, a significant expansion of its international capacity.

The Australian airline is adding 250,000 new seats on several key international routes linking Australia to Bali, New York, Johannesburg and Los Angeles as well as the launch and resumption of flights to new destinations.

This new capacity will come on stream progressively throughout the rest of 2023 and next year and will take Qantas beyond pre-pandemic traffic levels for the first time by summer 2024.

The route between Sydney Airport (SYD) and Ngurah Rai International Airport (DPS) in Bali will be upgauged from Boeing 737 aircraft to A330s fitted with fully flat beds on business class.

The recently launched route between Sydney and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), which Qantas operates with a stopover in Auckland (AKL), will become daily in August 2024 (up from four times a week currently), and Sydney to Los Angeles (LAX) will increase from seven to nine flights per week.

In July 2024 Qantas will also introduce A380 services to Johannesburg (JNB), South Africa for the first time, almost doubling capacity on peak periods. Increased A380 services will also help the airline lift its capacity by 20% on the Melbourne (MEL) to Los Angeles route.

October 2023 will also see the resumption of Sydney to Shanghai (PVG) flights and the introduction of two new international routes: Brisbane (BNE) to Honiara (HIR), in the Solomon Islands, and Brisbane to Wellington (WEL), New Zealand.

This capacity expansion will be made possible by the reactivation of the last two remaining A380 aircraft that Qantas had kept in storage since 2020.