Qantas goes Daily to South Africa

The FINANCIAL — Qantas on May 31 announced it would move to a daily schedule on its Sydney – Johannesburg route from 21 September 2010.

"Qantas Chief Executive Officer, Mr Alan Joyce, said the Qantas South African route was a key route for the airline and the addition of a seventh service provides Qantas customers with greater flexibility for travel between Australia and South Africa," Qantas says.

“Qantas is pleased to now offer a daily service from Sydney to Johannesburg with the introduction of an additional Boeing 747 service on Tuesdays, adding another 350 seats per week and more than 18,000 seats per year,” Mr Joyce said.

“South Africa is an important market for Qantas, particularly for business travel and it is important for us to offer our customers the flexibility of daily services.

“The daily schedule from Sydney will also now complement our daily codeshare services from Perth with South African Airways.

The Qantas South African route, otherwise known as the Wallaby Route because of the ‘short hops’ between ports along the way in the early days, has gone from strength to strength.

This year Qantas celebrates 62 years of services to South Africa and continues to be the only carrier to operate non stop services between Sydney and Johannesburg. Qantas increased services from five to six per week on the route in late 2008 and introduced Premium Economy on the route in March 2008.

To celebrate the announcement of the new daily service, Qantas is offering some special fares in both its Economy and Premium Economy cabins;

$1,499 all inclusive Economy fare from Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney to Johannesburg and;

$2,999 all inclusive Premium Economy fare from Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney to Johannesburg.

Both sales are for travel between 19 July and 15 September 2010 inclusive and sale ends 6 June 2010.

South African Airways will codeshare on each daily service.