Starting 25 June, the low-cost carrier will operate four flights a week to Bali using its 180-seat A320-200 aircraft, adding more than 74,000 seats per year on the route.
Starting in June, the carrier, China’s largest and one of the country’s “Big Four”, will increase its A350-900 flights from four to seven per week between Brisbane and Guangzhou, adding 48,984 inbound seats to Queensland from China per year.
VH-X4F, which touched down in Canberra on 3 April, is the sixth A220 in the Qantas fleet, and flew passengers for the first time as QF1271 from Canberra to Melbourne on Monday.
The partnership marks the latest step in Qantas and Airbus’ wider US$200 million joint initiative launched in 2022, aimed at fast-tracking SAF production.
A 45-year-old Jordanian man, Shadi Taiseer Alsaaydeh, has been charged with two counts of endangering the safety of an aircraft and one count of assaulting cabin crew, and is set to appear before Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday.
Flight JQ136 from Christchurch touched down in Cairns at around 10:40am on Wednesday aboard the A320-200 VH-VQL. The flights will operate three times per week, adding an estimated 70,000 trans-Tasman seats.
Sources have told The Australian and the AFR that the airline, owned by US financier Bain Capital, and its executives have been meeting with potential investors, while the group has also been restructured in new filings as a public company.