Australian airline Qantas is boosting its international services out of Melbourne, bringing their flagship A380-800s back to Australia’s second-biggest city and launching a new long-haul route later this year. Not only will the Qantas A380s resume services on the Melbourne – Los Angeles route from December, Qantas 787-9 Dreamliners will also begin jetting between Melbourne and Dallas Fort Worth.
Melbourne to host Qantas’ newest long-haul route
Qantas advises from December 2, 2022, four weekly return Boeing 787-9 flights between Melbourne (MEL) and Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) will begin. This will be the first ever nonstop commercial airline between the two cities and supplement the existing Qantas flights between Sydney (SYD) and DFW. At 8,998 miles (14,461 kilometers), this 17 hour plus route will become one of the longest scheduled services in the Qantas network and the world.
“We know large numbers of customers have been traveling between Melbourne and Dallas Fort Worth via our existing Sydney service, which gives us great confidence about how this route will perform when flights start,” said Qantas Group Chief Customer Officer Stephanie Tully on the weekend. “As well as being a destination in its own right, Dallas Fort Worth is one of the biggest hub airports in the United States and is located less than a four-hour flight from every major US city.”
“These new flights provide excellent connections for Australians visiting the United States and allow Melbourne to tap into an enormous inbound tourism market from cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, Houston, Washington DC, and Miami, as well as saving hours of travel time.
While Qantas advises the MEL – DFW will be on sale from Monday, at the time of writing the flights were not yet loaded into the Qantas booking engine.
Qantas will begin flying four times a week between Melbourne and Dallas Fort Worth in December. Photo: Qantas
The Qantas A380 is returning to the Melbourne – Los Angeles route
Similarly, Qantas is yet to load its Airbus A380-800 flights between Melbourne and Los Angeles (LAX) which will resume sometime in December. Currently, Qantas is flying four return Dreamliner flights each week between MEL and LAX. Due to healthy demand, these flights are getting an almost immediate boost with the number of return flights increasing to eight per week from next week. And while the Dreamliner is a nice enough plane, it definitely lacks the wow factor of the Airbus jumbo.
“Our customers in Melbourne have told us they have really missed the Qantas A380, so it’s fantastic that they’ll be back flying by the end of the year with our full premium service on these newly refurbished aircraft,” says Ms Tully.
Qantas is putting their A380s back on the Melbourne – Los Angeles run from December. Photo: Qantas
Qantas first class is coming back to Melbourne
Not only will the A380 flights add significant amounts of extra seats onto the route, the A380 flights will also see Qantas first class on offer again out of Melbourne Airport. Qantas has some decent first class passenger infrastructure in Melbourne, including a dedicated first class check in suite and an excellent airside first class lounge. All that’s being lacking since the onset of the pandemic are first class seats out of the city.
At the other end of the route, Qantas also has a rather good first class lounge on level five in the Tom Bradley International Terminal. It remains temporarily closed, but you could comfortably bet the champagne corks to be popping there by the end of the year.
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