With Australia finally reopening to the world after two very tough years for the local travel industry, Qantas, the country’s flag carrier, is starting to try out new things on its international network.
Today, the airline shook up the market with the announcement of a new nonstop, seasonal service between Australia and Italy – something that did not happen even before COVID hit.
The airline said it plans to connect Sydney and Rome – via Perth – with three weekly frequencies operated by the Boeing 787 from June 22 to October 6, 2022. This will be, the airline underscores, the only direct service between Australia and continental Europe.
Up to now, the only destination served by Qantas in Europe was London, with daily flights from Darwin. For 2022, the airline is selling flights from Darwin and Perth to London, with additional flights from Singapore.
“We’ve seen amazing demand on our direct service from Perth to London and on our new services to Delhi from Melbourne and Sydney”, said the CEO of Qantas Group, Alan Joyce, in a press release. “These are exciting destinations and there’s strong evidence the pandemic is making non-stop flights between Australia and the rest of world even more desirable as we learn to live with the virus and its variants,” the executive added.
“After the restrictions of the past few years,” he said, “it’s the ideal time to reinvigorate our international network and we’ll continue to look for new opportunities.”
Joyce said that Italy is the largest market from Australia for passengers visiting family and friends. An analysis posted by anna.aero just before the pandemic hit the country says that, specifically, Sydney-Rome was the tenth largest underserved ultra long-haul market from Australia.
Tickets are already for sale in Qantas’ website; the airline also says that the inaugural operation will be a “Points Plane”, with every seat available for purchase in frequent flyer points.
Qantas mentions that the service will “also give customers another option for reaching onward destinations across the Mediterranean and southern Europe through Qantas’ network of partners”; it also says there will be connections “to 16 destinations in Europe including Athens, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Nice, Madrid and Paris and 15 destinations within Italy including Milan and Venice.”
Considering all of these connections will be available from Rome, it is safe to assume that ITA Airways will become a partner of the Australian flag carrier. Indeed, Leonard Berberi, Corriere della Sera’s aviation reporter, speaks of a codeshare agreement between both as already certain in his report about the new operation.
Indeed, ITA Airways’ flights were already found by Aviacionline in Qantas’ booking system, as seen below, although they do not necessarily coordinate with the new operation just yet.
