After a two-year break, QF55 is flying from Brisbane to Los Angeles on Friday, bringing Qantas international flights back to the Queensland capital.
Qantas is resuming international flights from the Queensland capital of Brisbane on Friday morning. An Airbus A330-200 is taking off for Los Angeles mid-morning, marking the return of Qantas international services to Australia’s third-biggest city after a two-year absence. After today’s restart of services on the city-pair, flights will settle into a five-day-a-week schedule.
BNE – LAX back to five days a week
Pushing back from Brisbane (BNE) at 10:00 on Friday, QF55 will cover the 7,161 mile (11,525 kilometer) transpacific hop to Los Angeles (LAX) in 13 hours and 30 minutes, landing there at 06:30 on the same day. QF55 will depart Brisbane on Friday, Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
In the opposite direction, QF56 will fly out of LAX on the same days. QF56 will leave Los Angeles at 10:20 and take 14 hours and 20 minutes to complete the westbound trip to Brisbane, landing there at 17:40 the following day. Note on Mondays, the flight will depart LAX and arrive in BNE 20 minutes earlier.
Qantas will use an Airbus A330-200 (pictured) on the run between Brisbane and Los Angeles. Photo: Qantas
Some minor modifications were made to the operating aircraft to facilitate the transpacific flight – not normally the domain of Qantas A330-200s. Unlike the Qantas Boeing 787-9s to Los Angeles from Sydney and Melbourne that feature premium economy and the Airbus A380-800 out of Sydney that includes a swish first class cabin, the A330-200s from Brisbane only have business class and economy class cabins. But the business class product is the same as you’ll find on the Dreamliners and the refurbished A380s. As for the Qantas A330 economy class product, plenty of passengers prefer the 2-4-2 A330 economy class seat layout to the 3-3-3 layout on the Dreamliners.
“Being able to reconnect with the west coast of America after 24 long months is incredible news for Queensland, and I have no doubt the pent-up demand for travel, in both directions, will see these services fill quickly,” says Gert-Jan de Graaff, CEO at Brisbane Airport Corporation. “California is the largest state source market for US visitors to Australia. These services will allow American visitors to begin their Australian trip in Brisbane before taking advantage of BNE’s extensive domestic network.”
Still no firm word on those San Francisco & Chicago flights
Qantas now has flights to Los Angeles running from the big three Australian east coast capitals. It’s not quite back to business as normal for QF’s LAX services, but the airline is getting there.
Before the pandemic paused Qantas international flights in and out of Brisbane, including planned flights to San Francisco and Chicago – that Chicago flight would have been the only nonstop link between Australia and the third-biggest city in the US. Along with everything else, those flights went into hiatus, but Gert-Jan de Graaff has a tip on when they might be back on the radar.
“Qantas’ longstanding commitment to the state has always reflected its origins as a Queensland airline. Prior to the pandemic plans were well advanced on direct services to San Francisco and Chicago. We hope to see these plans become a reality once again, later this year.”
Read Next
About The Author
