Qantas' Brisbane-San Francisco flights to launch February 9, 2020

By Chris C., July 24 2019
Qantas' Brisbane-San Francisco flights to launch February 9, 2020

Qantas will begin non-stop Boeing 787 flights between Brisbane San Francisco on February 9, 2020, complementing the airline's current Sydney and Melbourne services to the City by the Bay.

Tickets for the new route are expected to go on sale around 10am today, with plenty of forward availability of points-based reward bookings for Qantas Frequent Flyer members.

Qantas flight QF59 will depart Brisbane at 8.35pm on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday for a 3.15pm arrival into San Francisco – perfectly timed to head to the city, check into your hotel and freshen up before pre-dinner drinks.

The QF60 return leg will depart San Francisco at 10.15pm on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, reaching Brisbane at 6am two days later.

Brisbane will host Qantas' third service to San Francisco, alongside Sydney and Melbourne
Brisbane will host Qantas' third service to San Francisco, alongside Sydney and Melbourne

Until now, Brisbane-based business travellers headed for San Fran and Silicon Valley have typically been forced to fly a domestic Qantas leg to Sydney; or head straight to Los Angeles to pick up a local connection and all the LAX transit bother that comes with it. The time-saving direct flights between Brisbane and San Francisco will take close to 13 hours.

Although San Francisco is generally considered a 'stop and drop' destination for most Qantas passengers, the airport hosts connecting flights to over 30 North American cities with Qantas’ airline partners.

The Brisbane-San Francisco flights will launch alongside the new Brisbane-Chicago route, which will run four days a week – on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday – beginning Monday April 20, 2020.

If you're looking to book a Brisbane-San Francisco trip with Qantas Points, a business class return ticket will come in at 192,000 points, with premium economy return at 144,000 points and economy return at 83,800 points.

Eager to jump-start your Qantas Points balance? Check out our pick of Australia's best Qantas Frequent Flyer credit cards.

This marks the Qantas’ third SF route, alongside the Boeing 787s which fly from Sydney (while a Boeing 747 at the time of writing, this is being upgraded to a Dreamliner as of 4 December 2019) and Melbourne.

To accommodate the new San Francisco route Qantas will trim its current schedule of ten flights per week between Brisbane and Los Angeles back to a daily service, dropping the Monday-Wednesday-Saturday QF55/QF56 flight so that its aircraft can be redirected to SF.

Qantas says it hopes to increase the Brisbane-San Francisco flights to a daily frequency based on demand.

Original story by Chris Chamberlin; udpates by David Flynn

Chris C.

Chris is a a former contributor to Executive Traveller.

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

08 May 2013

Total posts 27

Hopefully this will lead to a more enhanced premium lounge area or new offering for P and P1 out of BNE.

05 Mar 2015

Total posts 416

The BNE-SFO flights replace three of the current BNE-LAX flights so no actual change to passenger numbers ex-BNE.

Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards

10 Jan 2012

Total posts 259

Not overall, but if BNE-SFO departs the same time as QF15 (and multiple other flights) then at that time there's a huge increase. If they keep QF55 timings then there won't be much of an impact, if any, to check-in, lounges and boarding gates.

12 Dec 2012

Total posts 1027

Cue the flood of complaints about the oneworld SFO lounge options and speculation as to if/when QF will build their own? :P

Depending on the timing of the BNE-SFO flight, QF will now have 2-3 flights departing SFO a day, likely all around the same time in the evening.

Until the T1 redevelopment is complete, there is little to no space to build a new lounge or even drastically expand existing lounges.
The long term plan for SFO is to move AA into T1, next to the rest of oneworld in International A, with an airside connector between A and T1 B gates.
That's at least 1-3 years away.
With the co location mentioned in the AA/QF JV, maybe QF will move their SFO departures into the AA gates in T2, and then use the AA lounge. Of course, they'd still need to arrive in A, so that idea wouldn't work if they were short turns like the current MEL flights.

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

13 Jul 2012

Total posts 117

I thought all international flights from SFO depart from their International Terminal???

05 Dec 2018

Total posts 143

Great news for Brisbane folk, glad this is happening.

AT
AT

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

14 Sep 2012

Total posts 381

With new focus on Brissy for SFO & ORD (and LAX, NYC) and beyond for the future, I think it's timely to start re-thinking Terminal transfers. Nothing spells "seamless transfers" like buses. And that goes for Sydney too!!

X
X

British Airways - Executive Club

24 Jan 2012

Total posts 74

The Brisbane Airport masterplan includes a monorail to be built between Intl and Dom terminals, and a long term carpark. This could be delivered as early as 2022.


I wouldn't be surprised if this was the next major project after the new runway is delivered.

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

22 May 2017

Total posts 12

But Brisbane already has trains and an inter terminal bus, both of which are free to use. All that's missing is a walking track

Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards

08 Jul 2014

Total posts 58

Yes, a pedestrian option would be great - the terminals are not that far apart, and with Brisbane's generally pleasant weather, a walk before a trans-Pacific flight would be most welcome.

Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards

22 Apr 2013

Total posts 143

Article indicates that flights go on sale at around 10am. Must not be live in the booking portal yet as just tried a search, and returned results push you to EK via DXB on the outbound leg and AA/QF via SFO and LAX on the inbound leg.


...I await patiently :)


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