• 

  Qantas

  IATA/ICAO Code:

  QF/QFA

  Airline Type:

  Full Service Carrier

  Hub(s):

  Brisbane Airport, Melbourne Airport, Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport

  Year Founded:

  1920

  Alliance:

  oneworld

  CEO:

  Alan Joyce

  Country:

  Australia

After a two-year break, Qantas has returned to Papua New Guinea, quietly resuming flights to Port Moresby last Friday. Qantas is now flying a Boeing 737-800 aircraft three times a week between Brisbane (BNE) and Port Moresby (POM). The flights see Qantas resume yet another pre-pandemic route as the airline steadily reboots its international operations.

Back in Port Moresby after a two-year absence

Papua New Guinea media first reported on the restored flights that fell victim to the pandemic and Qantas' decision to pause virtually all international flights in late March 2020. Alongside Air Niugini and Virgin Australia, Qantas plied the 1,293 mile (2,080 kilometer) route up the Queensland coast and over the Coral Sea. With both Australian airlines abandoning their international operations two years ago, the city pair was left in the hands of Air Niugini, who maintained a barebones service.

Now the well-regarded but highly-priced Air Niugini has some competition on its hands. Departing every Monday, Wednesday, and Sunday from BNE at 09:25, QF57 will zip up to Port Moresby, landing at 12:35. After just 50 minutes on the ground, the Boeing 737-800 will turn around to operate QF58 back to Brisbane. The flight departs POM at 13:25 and touches down in Queensland's capital at 16:30. Qantas plans to increase flights to five times a week from June 20.

A small but strategically important route

The 737-800s servicing this route have none of the bells and whistles of Qantas' widebodies, but they do boast a relatively comfortable 12-seat business class cabin in a 2-2 configuration with recliner seats that do the job for a three-hour daytime flight. Behind the divider, 162 passengers cool their heels in economy class, enjoying (or not) the typical 737 3-3 seat layout.

The strategic timing of the flights allows for weekends in Brisbane (or weekends in Moresby for adventurous folks) and also a full week's worth of work in either city. Both cities function as typical airport hubs, with flights from all over Papua New Guinea coming and going from POM, while Brisbane Airport is typically the best connected domestic airport in Australia.

And while the BNE-POM route isn't the highest-profile in the Qantas network, it's usually a handy little earner for Qantas with high levels of freight, government, and business traffic moving between the two cities. It's also the only Qantas route connecting Australia and its nearest neighbor, with QantasLink flights between Cairns (CNS) and Port Moresby remaining on hiatus. In one guise or another, Qantas has flown to Papua New Guinea since World War II.

Some competition for Air Niugini

But Papua New Guinea is more dependent on the air link than Australia is, so Air Niugini kept up threadbare services into Brisbane throughout the pandemic, ferrying freight and essential travelers, while Qantas parked its planes. For a generation at least, Air Niugini has offered the best connectivity between the two countries, with flights on offer to Cairns, Brisbane, and Sydney before the pandemic, besting the Australian airlines on network and frequencies.

Virgin Australia, which before the pandemic, also flew Boeing 737-800 services between Brisbane and Port Moresby, indicated in early 2021 that it would not return to Port Moresby. However, that was 15 months ago, and 15 months is a lifetime in the airline industry these days. The prospect of healthy returns from a once-lucrative route may lure that airline back.

Source: The Post Courier