Qantas to fly again to Beijing in January 2017

Seven years after the flying roo stopped services to Beijing, Qantas announced on Thursday it would resume flights to China’s capital in January 2017. The rise of China as Australia’s fastest-growing inbound travel market is behind the decision to resume services.

Qantas would use its Airbus A330-200 jets beginning Jan 25 as part of its alliance with China Eastern, one of the three largest airlines in China. The Australian flag carrier would codeshare Eastern’s Sydney-Hangzhou, Sydney-Kunning and Brisbane-Shanghai routes, Sydney Morning Herald reports.

The return to China is part of Qantas’s expansion plans which includes planned direct flights on the London-Perth, Sydney-Paris and Melbourne-Rome routes, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said. The air carrier would use its new aircraft, the Qantas 787, on these non-stop long-haul trips.

Explaining the decision to fly to Beijing again, Joyce says, “We're seeing strong loads on our existing Shanghai and Hong Kong services, and on this new Beijing route we'll have the advantage of China Eastern marketing the Qantas flight as part of their own network.”

With 21 million Beijing residents, the potential passengers to Australia is tremendous, he adds. The flights would boost by 18 percent Qantas’s capacity to greater China, including Hong Kong. Because of the huge hike in the region’s demand for services, about 50 percent of Qantas and Jetstar’s international capacity is devoted to Asia when it was only 30 percent 10 year ago.

Besides the Beijing trips, Qantas has direct flights from Australian cities to Hong Kong and Shanghai, according to SBS.

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Sources: analogalex