The Australian island state of Tasmania, the Qantas Group, owner of Australia’s two largest airlines Qantas and its budget subsidiary Jetstar, has announced it will launch a new route connecting Queensland with Tasmania, as well as increasing the frequencies on existing routes to Tasmania over the upcoming summer holiday period in Australia.
Qantas announced yesterday that it will begin a new summer-seasonal domestic route connecting the Queensland capital of Brisbane with the northern Tasmania city of Launceston beginning on the 1st of November 2021. The new route marks the eighth new Tasmanian route launched by the Qantas Group since March 2020, showing the group’s renewed focus on domestic tourism since the closure of the international borders, particularly in the popular island holiday state of Tasmania.
The new Brisbane to Launceston route will utilize Boeing 717-200 aircraft of regional subsidiary QantasLink to connect the two cities on a three-times-weekly frequency. The new summer seasonal route is so far planned to operate until the end of March 2022, adding 15 000 seats on the route over the five months. Qantas has also hinted that the route may be extended beyond March 2022 if it proves to be a successful venture for the carrier.
The launch of the new route comes soon after the announcement on the 2nd of September, 2021, that all of QantasLink’s jet aircraft, including the Boeing 717’s, the Fokker 100, and the Airbus A320-200’s will be fitted with stream-to-your-device in-flight entertainment identical to that found on the Qantas Boeing 737-800 mainline fleet from September 2021 onwards. The rollout of the in-flight entertainment on QantasLink jets is expected to be completed by mid-2022.
According to Qantas Domestic and International CEO Andrew David, “Qantas is excited as the national carrier of Australia to begin flying between Brisbane and Launceston for the first time.” He also added that the carrier was thrilled to be adding another route to Tasmania.
In addition to the new QantasLink route connecting Brisbane and Launceston, Qantas’ budget subsidiary Jetstar Airways will boost the frequency on its existing Brisbane to Launceston route from daily to nine times weekly with the addition of two new weekly flights also beginning in November 2022.
Source: https://aeronewsx.com/qantas-group-renews-its-focus-on-tasmania-with-a-new-route/
