Auckland Airport welcomes Qantas’ Auckland-Perth flights

Media Release | 14 August 2013

Auckland Airport welcomes Qantas’ Auckland-Perth flights

Auckland Airport has welcomed today’s announcement by Qantas that it will start a new seasonal twice-weekly service between Auckland and Perth.

The new service will operate during the holiday season with an A330 aircraft, adding almost 1,000 seats per week over the busy Christmas and summer holiday period. The first service from Perth will be 6 December 2013 and the last service from Auckland will be 1 February 2014.

Glenn Wedlock, Auckland Airport’s general manager aeronautical operations, says, “Perth-Auckland is an important route for New Zealand with over 100,000 arrivals in the year ended June 2013. Western Australian arrivals to New Zealand grew by 12% this past year, and that’s on top of 15% growth in the previous 12 months.”

“To date there have been only limited direct flights from Western Australia. More than 30% of the current travel market between Perth and Auckland has had to travel via another point in Australia. The new direct services announced today will help stimulate demand by making it even more convenient for travellers to travel between the countries.”

“We are expecting significant growth on this route which sees 39% of travellers coming for a holiday and 50% of Western Australians visiting for business and to see friends and relatives.”

“Travellers from Western Australia also traditionally stay longer and tour more of New Zealand during their visit than other Australians. So more direct flights should see solid growth for the tourism industry.”

Mr Wedlock says, “The new route and the alliance between Qantas and Emirates demonstrate the significant opportunity for New Zealand to benefit from these two large international airlines.”

“It’s great news that both Qantas and Emirates travellers now have greater ability to connect across the services, and also connect to Dubai through Perth.”

“Today’s announcement will no doubt have considerable flow on benefits to destinations such as Queenstown, with itineraries being developed so that travellers can arrive in Auckland on a Qantas or Emirates flight, then head down to Queenstown and go back to Australia on Qantas direct flights, or vice versa.”

Mr Wedlock says, “Today’s announcement delivers more capacity, choice, fare and product options for passengers. We are confident that it will be very popular with travellers and deliver for New Zealand’s travel trade and tourism industry.”

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