After initial changes for the April to June quarter, the airline will adjust its services from July to September in response to the disruption caused by the regional war.
With the Middle East usually a significant connecting hub for air travel between Australia and Europe, Qantas will maintain redeployment of aircraft to provide alternative air access to Europe through Asia rather than the Middle East.
An increase in flights between Perth and Rome – from four per week to daily, which kicked in mid-April – has been extended by three more months, and will run until October. However extra flights between Sydney and Paris will revert in August, dropping from a peak of five services per week to three. Together these changes will see seats between Australia and Europe increase by 2,000 each week.
Meanwhile, capacity to other parts of the world on Qantas and its low cost subsidiary Jetstar has been scaled back.
This includes the suspension of Qantas services between Sydney and Bengaluru, India’s third largest city, between August and October, alongside reduced capacity between Australia and New Zealand on both Jetstar and Qantas.
Collectively, these adjustments will result in a two per cent drop in forecast international capacity for the airline group in the first quarter of the new financial year.
The reduction in domestic services on Qantas and Jetstar will also continue into the new financial year, with the five per cent drop in capacity seen through April to June extended through to the end of September.
The capacity drop will largely be through fewer services on key capital city routes.
In the same statement announcing these prolonged adjustments, Qantas also notes that “fuel prices remain significantly elevated”.
