Key points
- Qantas will fly to Palau for the first time.
- The airline was awarded a government contract.
- Flights will begin ‘in the next few months’.
Qantas has announced it will fly to Palau for the first time, after the airline revealed an expanded schedule for next year.
Weekly flights from Brisbane to the small Pacific nation will go on sale “in the coming weeks” and will take off “in the coming months”, Qantas said in a statement on Wednesday.
Qantas said it had secured a government contract to “help maintain strong trade and tourism links between Australia and Palau”.
Palau, which is about a six-hour flight from Brisbane, is one of the smallest countries in the world, with a population of less than 20,000 people. It is made up of around 300 islands, eight of which are inhabited, and is a popular destination for scuba diving.
The country’s capital is Ngerulmud, located on Babeldaob, the largest island.
The airline will also abandon an international route, no longer flying from Sydney to the Korean capital Seoul. Its budget airline Jetstar will increase flights on the Sydney-Seoul route.
Qantas Group international chief executive Cam Wallace said the airline was responding to “growing demand”.
He said Qantas would redeploy its planes to other routes “where we are seeing strong demand”.
The national airline said that starting from February 2025 it will add around 220,000 seats to its international network in 12 months.
This will be further boosted by larger aircraft flying the Darwin to Singapore route.
The company had previously announced it would launch the route in March 2025 with the Embraer E190, but on Monday said the larger 137-seat A220 will now operate five times a week.
Qantas will resume flights to Noumea, earlier this year forced her to cancel the route.
Flights from Melbourne to Dallas will increase from three to four per week, while flights from Sydney to New York will reduce from six to five per week.