Qantas to boost number of domestic flights on ‘golden triangle’

Qantas will increase its domestic services on the “golden triangle” early next year as the airline’s on-time performance and cancellation rate return to pre-COVID-19 levels. The number of return services between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane will increase by 57 per week from March, helping to raise the airline’s domestic capacity to 93% of 2019 levels. The airline also announced that about 50% of flights from Melbourne and Sydney to Perth will be serviced by Qantas’s Airbus A330 fleet. Qantas’ group customer officer Markus Svensson said the decision recognised the carrier’s operational performance had returned to 2019 levels and hoped the increased number of seats would incentivise customers with flight credits to redeem them now the airline is better placed after a dismal couple of months earlier in the year. “The data shows most customers have already redeemed their COVID credits but there’s still a significant number who are yet to put them to use,” Svensson said. “Our systems were never designed to unwind literally millions of bookings due to a pandemic and there have been some obvious challenges for us and for customers that we’ve worked hard to fix.” The airline is awaiting $600m in Qantas credits to be redeemed by customers yet to re-book after losing flights to the coronavirus pandemic. In an attempt to incentivise those holding on to their credits, the airline is offering double Frequent Flyer points if they book before February next year. More than $1.2b in travel credits have been used by passengers over the past two years but all outstanding COVID-19 credits will expire by the end of 2023.<br/>