Qantas boosts domestic operations; urges customers to use ‘COVID credits’

As flight operations normalize post-pandemic, Qantas is increasing its domestic capacity from March 2023.

The Australian flag carrier said that it plans to increase flights to the east coast of the country, as well as east-west routes.

Flights between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane will increase by 57 additional return services per week, raising the capacity back up to 93% of pre-pandemic levels.

Qantas is also adding seats on transcontinental services to and from Perth using its Airbus A330 fleet.

“With our operational performance now effectively back to pre-pandemic levels we’re gradually adding more domestic capacity from early next year,” Qantas Group chief customer officer Markus Svensson said in a statement.

Svensson added: “We’re the only airline flying widebody aircraft domestically and we know how much our customers in Business class value having a lie-flat seat on longer flights to and from Perth.”

COVID-19 travel credits
The airline is also urging customers to use any travel credits they have left over from the pandemic, offering double Qantas points on flights booked before February 2023.

Qantas extended flexibility for flight changes and credit redemptions to customers during the pandemic. The airline says that $AU 1.2 billion ($802,038,000.00) worth of travel credits were used by customers over the past two and a half years.

According to Qantas, there are still $AU 600 million ($400,839,000.00) in COVID credits held by over 900,000 customers.