Qantas opens new route to Asia

Asia has long enjoyed a magnetic pull for Australian tourists and business travellers, and Qantas is continuing its push into the region with additional flights into Singapore from this weekend.

Sunday March 30 sees the launch of direct flights between Darwin and Singapore, with a workhorse Boeing 737 making the five-hour dash over the Timor and Java Seas.

• QF113 will depart Darwin at 2.55pm, reaching Singapore at 6.15pm
• QF114 will depart Singapore at 7.20pm, reaching Darwin at 1.40am the next day 

Those times generally fit around the Singapore stopover of Qantas’ flagship QF1/QF2 superjumbo flights on the Kangaroo Route, as long as you don’t mind spending four to five hours at Changi (having lounge access will soften the blow).

Qantas' Singapore business class lounge.

Qantas last operated Darwin-Singapore flights almost two decades ago, in 2006, and of course the Flying Kangaroo doesn’t have those skies all to itself

Singapore Airlines flies the same route on a Boeing 737 MAX fitted with lie-flat business class beds and free WiFi, both of which the Qantas 737 lacks.

And there’s better connectivity beyond Singapore, too: a raft of onwards SQ flights spear out from Changi across Asia, Europe, the UK and the Americas.

As previously reported, Qantas intends to shift Darwin-Singapore to the newer Airbus A220 from Sunday October 26.

Qantas is now rolling out free WiFi across its Asia-focussed A330 fleet.

Qantas is now rolling out free WiFi across its Asia-focussed A330 fleet, and also sees an increasing Asian role for the factory-fresh A321XLR jets.

Speaking to Executive Traveller on the sidelines of an Airbus briefing in Hamburg last week, Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson said the A321XLR would not be restricted to domestic hops around the east coast capitals.

“It could take one of those routes up into Indonesia from Sydney or Melbourne.”

A second batch of international A321XLRs, which could be fitted with lie-flat beds in business class, would fuel an expansion of direct routes to Asia from capital cities outside beyond the Sydney-Melbourne-Brisbane triumvirate.

“We’ve talked about Adelaide–Singapore before,” Hudson said. “Conceivably there could be Canberra-Singapore, Perth to India or Perth to Malaysia.”

Also read: ‘Secret’ Qantas status match unlocks travel perks