Qantas ups "golden triangle" capacity in boost for airfares

Qantas will, from today, operate an extra 57 return services per week between the Golden Triangle of Sydney–Melbourne–Brisbane in a move that should reduce airfares across the industry. It follows Sydney Airport’s CEO claiming this month that the domestic aviation recovery had been “stagnant” since April last year, with numbers still 17 per cent down compared to pre-pandemic. Geoff Culbert appeared to blame airlines for offering fewer seats for sale to consumers alongside higher prices. However, today’s increase by Qantas will see its capacity, or seats for sale, on the services rise by 11 points to 93 per cent of pre-COVID levels. The Flying Kangaroo is also adding seats on transcontinental services to and from Perth using the airline’s larger Airbus A330 fleet, while sister carrier Jetstar is boosting its domestic and international flying capacity next six months by 15 percentage points. Nationwide, the domestic aviation industry peaked at 97% pre-pandemic passenger numbers in June last year, but it came alongside all-time records for delays being broken that month and in April and July. Since then, the industry has cut flights to improve the passenger experience. Recent figures, though, appear to show capacity is failing to return to the market as quickly as hoped, which is in itself leading to higher airfares and fewer people flying.<br/>