Qantas brings back Perth-London nonstop earlier than planned

Qantas has brought forward the resumption of its Perth-London nonstop due to increasing demand for its direct service, which is the airline’s most popular. The service - QF9/10- was scheduled to return on June 19 and will now re-start on May 23. One of the factors contributing to the earlier resumption has been the current routing via Darwin to London is impacted by the effective closure of Russian airspace, which has meant additional fuel and thus lower payloads. Qantas said that with bookings for these non-stop flights above pre-COVID levels, the Darwin to London services have very few seats available over the next six weeks. The flight path from Perth to London is more direct, which means there are no airspace issues and thus no restrictions on the number of passengers. SEE the podcast: Flight Safety Detectives dissect the Netflix doco “Downfall”. READ: Can the giant AN-225 fly again? READ: More serious questions raised about the ATSB’s MH370 data review Qantas International chief executive Andrew David said “the NT Government and Darwin Airport went above and beyond so that we could operate these services when WA kept its borders closed, and we’re extremely grateful for their partnership. “While it has been great to operate from the Top End, we’ve always said that Perth remained the long-term home of these flights. “We’re looking forward to reconnecting Western Australia to Europe earlier than anticipated and enabling more customers to fly.” Prior to COVID the QF9/10 was Qantas’s most popular and profitable service with passenger load factors in the mid 90 per cent. This week Qantas boss Alan Joyce assured the Perth-London nonstop is here to stay and that later this decade the 787s would be replaced by the more capable and spacious A350 that the airline ordered Monday.