Qantas to fly to London direct

QANTAS WILL START direct flights between Perth and London Heathrow on B787-9 Dreamliners from March 2018. The 14,498-kilometre, 17-hour service will be the first regular passenger service to directly link Australia with Europe.

The flight will operate through Qantas’ existing domestic terminals (T3/4) in Perth, which will be upgraded to accommodate international flights. Current international services from Perth (to Singapore and to Auckland) will also move to this terminal in order to boost connectivity.

Officially, it doesn’t alter Emirates’ joint venture with Qantas, but this agreement is underpinned by funneling passengers through Dubai.

Emirates – which doesn’t have traffic rights between Perth and London and isn’t codesharing on the new route – will lose out if QF attracts high-yield passengers on which the route will depend (although Emirates does serve Perth three times daily from Dubai).

A Qantas spokesperson said: “We have no immediate plans to change the Melbourne or Sydney services through Dubai but the arrival of the 787-9s will open up new opportunities and result in some changes to our network over time. We will work through those and make any adjustments based on what’s happening in the market.” Seats will go on sale in April.

Emirates will fly a ‘one off’A380 to Warsaw on February 17 and start daily A380 services to Casablanca (replacing B777-300ER) from March 26.