Qatar Airways returns to Canberra
The Australian capital will see Qatar’s return in December.
By David Flynn, October 7 2025
Qatar Airways will return to Canberra in December 2025, reconnecting the Australian capital with Doha and beyond as the Gulf airline boosts flights across its global network.
The move will coincide with partner Virgin Australia’s launch of flights from Melbourne to Doha, using planes and crew supplied by Qatar Airways.
However, these daily Canberra flights won’t be direct to Doha – they’ll run via Melbourne, as an extension of the current QR988/QR989 service, with the 18-hour trek being broken up by a 2½ Melbourne stopover in both directions.
- QR989 will depart Canberra at 12:30pm and reach Doha at 10:25pm
- QR988 will depart Doha at 8:15am, arriving into Canberra at 8:20am the following day
The Canberra-Melbourne-Doha flight replaces the current Adelaide-Melbourne-Doha route, and both are similar to the original Canberra-Sydney-Doha route launched in 2018 and then scrapped in 2020.
Qatar’s Canberra flights will feature a Boeing 777 equipped with business class Qsuites and fast free Starlink WiFi.
As part of the re-launch, Qatar Airways is now offering Early Bird fares for booking to 31 October 2025, for travel from 19 January to 31 October 2026, with business class from $7,759 return.
(You can also scoop up similar sub-$8,000 Early Bird rates from Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, while Sydney and Adelaide kick off from just under $8,500,)
Qatar Airways Chief Commercial Officer, Thierry Antinori, said by returning to Canberra the airline was “reinforcing its commitment to enhance connectivity between Australia and the world.”
“This service not only provides over a million residents access to a global network spanning more than 170 destinations, but also invites the world to rediscover Canberra’s unique cultural, educational, and tourism offerings,” added Canberra Airport CEO Stephen Byron.
Qatar Airways is also ramping up flights to London, which will now see as many as 10 daily flights, along with additional flights to Berlin, Cape Town, Frankfurt, Johannesburg, Madrid, Manchester, Phuket, Sao Paulo, Tokyo and Toronto.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
05 Oct 2016
Total posts 154
This is great. It means that QR989 won't be the VA flight, so we can get QF SCs when flying into LHR and EU ports arriving early am. I was hoping they weren't going to make the mid afternoon departure from MEL as the VA flight!
10 Jul 2023
Total posts 8
I wonder if it was an option to make this a VA rather than QR flight. Presumably that would have allowed them to carry passengers solely on the MEL-CBR flight as well?
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
20 Aug 2014
Total posts 182
This flight will have to stay as the QR flight number. They can't change this flight to a VA number unless QR also drop another Melbourne flight due to the traffic rights situation.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
06 Oct 2016
Total posts 193
Any word if this will be 5th freedom?
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
20 Aug 2014
Total posts 182
I don't think Qatar have the rights to sell domestic only itineraries in Australia.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
31 Aug 2012
Total posts 213
Bad news for Adelaide flyers. With the current DOH-MEL-ADL route disappearing, it leaves ADL with only QR914/915 on a daily schedule. The midnight to 6am MEL layover was always a PIA but was more civilised on the outward journey from ADL.
There was talk about a 2nd daily ADL-DOH service, but that's gone silent lately. Would do well as the catchement is larger than just SA, with many savvy east coast flyers willing to depart from ADL to get a premium seat which may have been unavailable out of SYD or MEL (and CBR).
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
24 Jan 2018
Total posts 860
MissBassett raises a good point (re: ADL). I would have thought it made more sense to bold CBR onto the end of the Doha-ADL flight to give Doha-ADL-CBR. Geographically it make more sense, and the ~2 hour CBR-ADL sector would make more sense than the ~1 hour CBR-MEL sector, but I assume there's a reason why not. Comments/suggestions, anyone?
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
28 Jul 2011
Total posts 65
No - because the aim here is to get an additional flight into a major city where there are excess customers. So really it has to be either Sydney or Melbourne.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
24 Feb 2015
Total posts 9
2.5 hour layovers (especially on the way to CBR when no domestic passengers will be boarding) seems excessive. Other airports can turn around flights much quicker than 2.5 hours.
Hi Guest, join in the discussion on Qatar Airways returns to Canberra