Qantas will launch a new, non-stop service from Brisbane to Manila in the Philippines from 28 October 2024.

Qantas has previously served the Brisbane-Manila route. It used to operate its existing QF19/20 service between Sydney and Manila via Brisbane, but this became a non-stop flight in 2013. This new flight will operate as a standalone Brisbane-Manila route, in addition to the existing daily Sydney-Manila flights.

Philippine Airlines already offers daily flights between Brisbane and Manila. This flight is usually operated by an Airbus A321neo, but wide-body jets occasionally make an appearance.

Qantas’ new Brisbane-Manila schedule

Qantas’ non-stop Brisbane-Manila flights will run four times per week using Airbus A330-200 aircraft. There are 27 lie-flat Business seats on the Qantas A330-200, plus 224 Economy seats.

The schedule will be as follows:

• QF97 Brisbane (BNE) 19:15 – Manila (MNL) 01:00 + 1 day
• QF98 Manila 02:45 – Brisbane 12:20

The 2.45am departure time for the return service is unfortunate. This could be due to slot constraints at Manila’s highly-congested Ninoy Aquino International Airport. It could also be an issue of Qantas aircraft availability, with QF97 likely to utilise the A330-200 arriving from Auckland at 17:20.

Qantas previously used the QF97/98 flight numbers for its Brisbane-Hong Kong route, which hasn’t returned following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Increasing demand between Australia and the Philippines

Qantas’ Sydney-Manila route has been performing well, with load factors consistently above 90% in the most recent months for which data is available.

Demand for travel between Australia and the Philippines has soared lately. Qantas is well-placed to take advantage of that.

Book Brisbane-Manila with Qantas Points

If you’re interested in booking a seat, keep an eye out for Classic Flight Reward availability once flights go on sale.

It would cost 25,200 Qantas Points + taxes & carrier charges for a one-way Economy seat. A Business Classic Flight Reward will cost 68,400 Qantas Points + taxes & charges.

Other updates to Qantas’ Asian network

Qantas will also add an additional three weekly flights between Sydney and Singapore from 11 December 2024, bringing the total number of weekly services on this route to 17.

Brisbane-Singapore will get an additional two weekly flights, with the second daily service from Brisbane designed to offer connections onto QF1 from Singapore to London.

Between mid-December 2024 and late March 2025, Sydney-Bengaluru will go from 5x weekly to daily to cater to the increased demand during the period.

Unfortunately, however, Qantas will suspend its Sydney-Shanghai route from 28 July 2024. This is despite China removing the visa requirement for Australians.

“Since COVID, the demand for travel between Australia and China has not recovered as strongly as expected. In some months, our flights to and from Shanghai have been operating around half full,” Qantas International CEO Cam Wallace said.

“That’s why we’ve decided to suspend this route and boost flying to other popular destinations with a new route from Brisbane to Manila and additional flights to Singapore and Bengaluru. This will create more choice for our corporate and leisure customers and make it even easier for them to access the places they need to travel to in Asia.

“We’ll continue to maintain a presence in China through our partners and our existing flights to Hong Kong and look to return to Shanghai in the future.”

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.