Qantas will reinstate its popular “kangaroo route” to London via Singapore. Qantas’ flagship A380 service, QF1, will once again operate as Sydney-Singapore-London from March next year. In doing so, the national carrier will cease all flights to Dubai.
Despite deserting Dubai, Qantas intends to extend its alliance with Emirates for a further five years. Qantas will still sell codeshare tickets on Emirates services to Europe via Dubai, and Qantas customers can continue to earn and redeem points on Emirates flights.
Melbourne-based flyers will also benefit from a new daily A380 service between Melbourne and Singapore. This service will connect to QF1/2 between Singapore and London.
Qantas’ new Singapore-London flights commence on 25 March 2018, a day after the first non-stop Boeing 787 flight takes off from Perth to London.
Our members hope that Qantas’ Singapore Lounge – already close to capacity most evenings – will cope with the increased passengers flying through the lion city.
Dubai as a transit point en-route to Europe was touted by Qantas as the way of the future just five years ago. In 2013, Qantas re-routed both of its London-bound flights via Dubai. One of the key benefits was Qantas’ ability to connect passengers via Dubai onto Emirates’ extensive network. Emirates flies from Dubai to dozens of destinations across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Not everyone was a fan of the Dubai stopover, and the restoration of the traditional kangaroo route has been largely welcomed by our members. But it’s not such good news for Qantas flyers that wish to fly to secondary destinations across Europe, such as Rome and Amsterdam. They’ll now need to either fly Emirates all the way from Australia, or fly to London and “back-track”. The main downside of flying Emirates is the inability to upgrade using Qantas points.
Qantas does have plans to add more non-stop flights between Australia and Europe. Perth-Frankfurt, Perth-Paris and Perth-Rome are all on the cards as possible new Boeing 787 routes. Qantas is also considering launching non-stop Sydney-London flights as early as 2022. These flights would be operated by either Boeing 777X or Airbus A350ULR aircraft. The flight time from Sydney to London would be 20 hours and 20 minutes.
Are you happy to see the Singapore stopover reinstated, or will you miss flying via Dubai? Join the discussion HERE.
