Thousands of Qantas passengers with international bookings received notifications on Tuesday that their flight’s departure time had been pushed back by one minute. Then, on Wednesday, Qantas moved the departure times on these flights forward by one minute – reinstating their original departure times.

Qantas international flights departing Sydney and Melbourne were affected by the schedule changes. For example, QF1 from Sydney to London was temporarily rescheduled to leave at 15:51 instead of 15:50, while QF11 from Sydney to Los Angeles had a change in its departure time from 10:20 to 10:21. There were no changes made to arrival times.

A small number of flights had further adjustments, such as one with its departure time pushed back by 6 minutes.

It seems odd, but there is a reason why Qantas has done this.

Increased minimum connection times in Sydney & Melbourne

Last week, Qantas increased the minimum connection times for domestic to international connections through Sydney and Melbourne airports. Rather than a brisk 60 minutes, the minimum connection time is now a more comfortable (and realistic!) 90 minutes. The change will take effect from 21 August 2022.

This change was made to reduce the high number of Qantas passengers missing their international connections due to domestic flight delays, as well as the amount of time it has been taking for some people to transfer to the international terminal and clear security (particularly during peak periods). This also increases the likelihood of checked bags making it into connecting international flights.

So, what does this have to do with the recent bizarre schedule adjustments? Well, Qantas had already sold a lot of tickets based on the old minimum connection time. In order to ensure tickets that no longer meet the new minimum connection times are flagged for rebooking, Qantas slightly adjusted the departure times on most international flights departing Sydney or Melbourne on or after 21 August. This was done intentionally to trigger schedule change notifications.

If a ticket no longer meets the minimum connection time, it will now be flagged as being invalid and Qantas will theoretically offer an earlier connecting flight. In many cases, this should involve an automatic rebooking onto an earlier flight. However, if this doesn’t happen in your case, you may need to proactively call the airline.

Due to the intentional schedule changes, affected Qantas tickets will now need to be re-issued. Again, this should happen automatically in most cases. But given Qantas’ track record of (not) re-issuing Classic Flight Reward tickets promptly, you may wish to double-check that your ticket has indeed been correctly re-issued.

Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Qantas international flights – adjusted by 1 minute

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 economics, aviation & 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.