Is Qantas really that Sydney centric?
Alternative working title: Does Qantas really hate Melbourne?
A popular narrative among the Australian frequent flyer and avgeek community is that Qantas hates Melbourne (or any other city other than Sydney). It’s a narrative that’s easy to back up with an anecdote regarding the city pair that you want to fly that Qantas doesn’t fly or used to fly, especially if that city pair is flow by Qantas from Sydney or by another foreign carrier.
Our mate Caleb reckons Qantas hates Melbourne because they no longer have non-stop Melbourne-San Francisco flights despite United still flying the route and because Qantas fly to San Francisco from Sydney. San Francisco being United’s largest west coast connecting hub is irrelevant to Caleb, while Qantas’s strategy of shifting US capacity to Dallas is #fakenews!
On a more serious note, many will argue that Qantas’s cancellation of direct Melbourne-London flight via Perth in July 2024 is evidence of Qantas’s anti-Melbourne bias. Furthermore, as recently as 2012 they operated twice daily direct flights between Melbourne and London.
None of these flights were non-stop, rather direct flights operating via Dubai, Perth, Hong Kong and/or Singapore. The loss of the direct flight may be temporary as its likely to return as a non-stop flight as part of Project Sunrise in the coming years.
The counterargument is that the loss of direct flights to London on Qantas is purely symbolic. Other than a change of flight number, is there really much difference flying on QF37 to Singapore and connecting on QF1 to London (and QF2/36 on the return)? In fact, the outbound to London has a shorter stopover in Singapore compared to the direct flight from Sydney (and identical on the return).
QF1 SYD SIN 3:55pm 9:05pm
QF1 SIN LHR 11:05pm 6:15am⁺¹
QF2 LHR SIN 8:10pm 5:40pm⁺¹
QF2 SIN SYD 7:40pm 6:35am⁺¹
QF37 MEL SIN 4:55pm 10:05pm
QF1 SIN LHR 11:05pm 6:15am⁺¹
QF2 LHR SIN 8:10pm 5:40pm⁺¹
QF36 SIN MEL 7:40pm 6:15am⁺¹