Qantas’ shake-up of flights hits Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth
Sweeping changes are coming to the airline’s international flying network...
By Staff Writers, May 6 2025
Qantas is planning a raft of changes to its international flight schedule for Australia’s capital cities from October 2025.
But worried travellers can stop holding their breath, because it pretty much all falls into the ‘good news’ basket.
In line with recent speculation, the airline has confirmed it will restart Perth-Auckland and Perth-Johannesburg flights in December 2025.
Perth-Johannesburg will launch on 7 December, with Perth-Auckland starting on 8 December; both routes will run three flights per week, with fares now on sale.
And with Jetstar ending flights between Sydney and Honolulu from 24 October, so that it can move its Boeing 787 onto “other destinations in Asia”, Qantas will ramp up its Sydney- Honolulu route to 5-6 flights per week.
The airline notes that Honolulu remains popular with Aussie travellers, following the recent launch of Qantas flights from Melbourne to the Hawaiian capital.
There’s also a ray of sunshine for those travelling between Brisbane and Los Angeles, which finally sees a modern Boeing 787 Dreamliner take over daily flights from October 2025, replacing the noisy and cramped Airbus A330 which was pressed into stop-gap service in early 2022.
As an added bonus, the 787 Dreamliner incudes premium economy seats which continue to enjoy strong appeal with travellers on a value-for-money basis.
However, for the peak Aussie summer travel season across December 2025 and January 2026, Qantas will wind back its daily Brisbane-Los Angeles 787 to four flights per week, with a 787 flown by Oneworld partner American Airlines 787 on the other three days; the red-tailed Qantas 787s will be back on a daily’s basis from February 2026.
For the same December-January period, Qantas will increase its Melbourne-Dallas Fort Worth Boeing 787 flights to a daily frequency.
Finally, Qantas is bringing back the Airbus A380 superjumbo to the Sydney-Dallas Fort Worth route, with daily flights from January 2026.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
28 Oct 2011
Total posts 488
Good news on the HNL front - more Qantas, less Jetstar.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
21 Jul 2014
Total posts 148
Hopefully they keep the Qantas timings as they always were a tad more friendly
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
26 Aug 2015
Total posts 10
I was hoping this PER-AKL would be timed to offer connection thru to JFK but with the timings on NQF website the result is a 12 hr stopover in AKL
Delta Air Lines - SkyMiles
16 Oct 2017
Total posts 177
Not all good news. The AKL-PER-JNB rotation looks like a330-200. Better than SAA a340-300 PER-JNB probably but that's not saying much.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
08 Dec 2019
Total posts 5
I was hoping to see the proposed changes for Haneda but possibly still further away if at all.
12 Dec 2012
Total posts 1036
They had the 3rd HND slot from late Feb and had said they would start using it by end March. They were given until end April to start.
IASC has since given them an extension until end Nov to start.
I had also been hoping for Qantas to say something about it by now.
BA Gold
01 Apr 2012
Total posts 212
I am curious to see how the Perth base will shape up in terms of the crew that will operate these flights.
QF currently only has domestic based cabin crew based in PER. The LHR flight is crewed by LHR based Flight Attendants and the PER-SIN is crewed by either SYD or MEL based crews. PER-CDG/FCO by SYD based crew.
I imagine that the PER-AKL and AKL-JNB flights will be crewed by the AKL based 'Jetconnect' Flight Attendants.
Will be interesting to see if the airline does establish a proper long haul base at PER.
22 Aug 2013
Total posts 10
Wow! thats a large Capacity drop in HNL movig from JQ 788's to QF 789's. Will be interestiing to see if the JQ 788's will boost capacity into Japan?
Etihad - Etihad Guest
11 May 2018
Total posts 8
I'll definitely be using those extra MEL-DFW flights, and will probably venture onto the A380 on SYD-DFW when that comes online.
Still wishing we had gotten that BNE-ORD route that was planned before COVID came along.
MEX would also be great, considering the increasing travel between Australia and Latin America -- especially for those who want to avoid transiting in the USA. Might be difficult to get new routes into MEX (not NLU) these days, though.
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