Qantas adds extra flight

QANTAS has tacked on an additional flight to meet demand for the Townsville to Adelaide route.

The flights, which started earlier this month, opened up a new market for North Queensland and became the first new route to commence at Townsville Airport in almost a decade.

Qantas first launched the Townsville-adelaide route with three weekly return flights, and after less than a month, it has now added the additional flight for the next seven weeks.

“There has been a great response to our new flights from Adelaide to Townsville since they first went on sale earlier this year,” a Qantas spokeswoman said. “These destinations have been incredibly popular with Queenslanders throughout Covid and we’re seeing that travellers from interstate are just as keen to visit the tropical north.”

The Qantas TownsvilleAdelaide flights are the only direct connection between the two cities and save travellers more than two hours in travel time on the round trip.

Qantas will continue to monitor the demand between the two destinations.

Queensland Airports, which owns the Townsville Airport, has embraced the additional flights.

The first group of passengers touched down on Monday September 13.

General manager Brendan Cook said both North Queenslanders and South Australians were quick to embrace the new Qantas service.

“We are thrilled to see an extra weekly flight added to this route so soon after the service was launched,” Mr Cook said.

“This gives a strong indication people are keen to travel when there are no restrictions stopping them.”

The Covid-19 pandemic brought travel to a halt in Townsville, but has steadily been increasing since the initial lockdown period ended.

About 57,000 passengers travelled through the terminal in August, about 38 per cent of pre-coronavirus levels in 2019.