The Qantas Group has announced temporary reductions to flights across Asia in response to a drop in demand due to Coronavirus.
Reductions of around 5 per cent will be made to Qantas and Jetstar’s flying between Australia and New Zealand. Flights to the US and UK remain unaffected.
Below is a summary of the network changes.
QANTAS INTERNATIONAL
Qantas International will cut 16 per cent of Asia capacity until at least the end of May, impacting flights from Australia to mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore.
- Sydney-Shanghai (the airline’s sole route to mainland China) – will remain suspended
- Sydney-Hong Kong – reduced from 14 return flights per week to 7
- Brisbane-Hong Kong – reduced from 7 return flights per week to 4
- Melbourne-Hong Kong – reduced from 7 return flights per week to 5
- Melbourne-Singapore – flights to be operated by Boeing 787s instead of larger Airbus 380s (approx. 250 less seats per flight)
JETSTAR GROUP
Jetstar Group will cut its capacity to Asia by 14 per cent until at least the end of May, impacting flights from Australia to Japan and Thailand, and intra-Asia flights. Jetstar has already quietly stopped flying direct between Singapore and Melbourne since October 2019.
- Cairns-Tokyo (Narita), Cairns-Osaka, Gold Coast-Tokyo (Narita) and Melbourne & Sydney-Phuket will each be reduced by up to two return flights per week.
- Each of the Jetstar airlines in Asia – Jetstar Asia (Singapore), Jetstar Japan and Jetstar Pacific (Vietnam) – have suspended flights to mainland China and are reducing flights across the region. In particular, Jetstar Asia is reducing total seats by 15 per cent.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce responded saying
The capacity we’re taking out is the equivalent of grounding 18 aircraft across Qantas and Jetstar until the end of May, which in turn impacts about 700 full time roles. To avoid job losses we’ll be using leave balances across our workforce of 30,000 and freezing recruitment to help ride this out.
Let’s pray and hope that this situation resolves quickly and that demand into Asia will rebound soon.