News this week is that Qatar Airways will return to Canberra from December 2025, operating daily one-stop flights via Melbourne. This is not the first time that Qatar have served Canberra, having previously operated one-stop flights via Sydney between February 2018 and March 2020.
What makes this flight interesting is that it was never about accessing the Canberra market but rather Qatar accessing additional frequencies to Sydney and later Melbourne. As we discussed last year, Qatar is limited to 28x weekly flights to Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, but has unlimited capacity to other cities (e.g. Adelaide). They’re able to access an additional 7x weekly flights to Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney provided they operate via or onward to another city (e.g. Adelaide or Canberra).
Between February 2018 and March 2020, Qatar utilised the additional frequencies to Sydney with an onward leg to Canberra. Since December 2022 they have been utilised to Melbourne with an onward leg to Adelaide. The Melbourne-Adelaide leg has been described by many as a “ghost flight” since this flight generally operates near empty. Its purpose isn’t to serve Adelaide, which Qatar serve with daily non-stop flights, but to exploit a “loophole” to gain more market access.
This was also the case with the previous Sydney-Canberra flight. BITRE data shows that Qatar carried an average of 38 passengers on each flight to/from Canberra despite an the aircraft having capacity for 358 or 327 passengers.
So why are Qatar returning to Canberra? Is there more than meets the eye? To understand this, let’s have a look at recent developments between Qatar and Virgin Australia.