Qantas’ new route to New York takes off
By Kylie McLaughlin
Qantas will begin non-stop flights to New York from Auckland on Wednesday, the first time the airline has offered flights to the US city in three years, as the airline continues to expand its international network post-COVID.
Originating in Sydney, the new route replaces a stop in Los Angeles (used before the pandemic) with New Zealand’s Auckland hub.
The New York flights will be flown by a Dreamliner with 166 economy-class seats in a 3-3-3 configuration. Credit: Craig Platt
Qantas will fly Boeing 787 Dreamliners on the route with 42 business-class, 28 premium-economy and 166 economy-class seats.
“LA had a lot of issues with connectivity,” said chief executive Alan Joyce prior to the departure of the flight.
“You had to pick up your bag, go through customs and immigration and then check in again for the Qantas flight that went to New York. And we never had the aircraft, until the 787s were available, to be able to do Auckland to New York.”
QF3 departed at 4.49pm (New Zealand time) Wednesday, 14 minutes behind schedule, and will take 16 hours and 15 minutes to reach New York from Auckland, covering 16,371 kilometres and giving the airline three of the top-five longest flights in the world, measured by time.
The high-demand Perth to London route (17 hours, 45 minutes) and Dallas to Melbourne (17 hours, 25 minutes) clock in slightly longer.
The world’s longest flight title is still held by Singapore Airlines with its Singapore to New York route, which only seats business and premium-economy passengers for the ultra-long 18-hour, 50 minute flight.
The New York route will be in direct competition with the non-stop flight first operated by Air New Zealand in September 2022.
Given the launch of Air New Zealand’s flights were marred by problems, no doubt Qantas hopes to collect some of the rival airline’s passengers when it stops in Auckland this week.
Bad weather meant Air New Zealand had to lighten its load to have enough fuel to make the journey from New York to Auckland, and decided to offload passengers’ luggage at New York’s JFK. Passengers whose luggage was left behind did not find out until they reached Auckland. Another run of bad weather forced the airline to stop at Fiji’s Nadi Airport to refuel.
Joyce highlighted the work that has gone into avoiding these issues on the New York flights, which included using an advanced cloud-based flight-planning system that measures flight times and winds to determine the optimal route.
However, one hitch in Wednesday’s launch saw some connecting passengers from Melbourne moved onto a direct flight to Dallas after QF151 to Auckland was delayed.
Qantas will be operating the New York route four times a week (compared to Air New Zealand’s three).
The new route represents a forerunner of the airline’s Project Sunrise - a plan to launch non-stop flights to New York and London from Australia’s east-coast capitals. Qantas will unveil the cabins for these flights, to be flown by a specialised Airbus A350, later this week. The airline plans to continue the Auckland-New York route even after the Project Sunrise flights launch some time in 2025.
“Offering more room and fewer seats than most of our competitors, the cabins onboard these aircraft have been designed with long-haul travel in mind,” said Joyce.
The airline is also investing $100 million into new and upgraded lounges at Auckland’s International Airport, which opens in mid-2024. The airport is currently undergoing repair work after being subjected to flooding in February this year.
Joyce said he expects the price of airfares to “normalise” as capacity returns to the aviation industry, but advised that fares were unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels.
“That was 2019, we’ve had four years of inflation, we’ve had higher oil prices, but they are normalising,” he said.
“Part of adding these services on to the Pacific is that we’re going to see a lot of capacity ... which will bring airfares down. We have Delta, we have American, we have United, we have Air New Zealand adding capacity and we’re adding capacity.”
The writer travelled as a guest of Qantas.
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