Qantas makes Wellington a stronghold - why it’s so keen on the capital

A Qantas E190 aircraft arriving at Wellington Airport. Photo / Mark Tantrum

Qantas is flexing its muscles in New Zealand with its latest transtasman service to Wellington.

The Australian airline is now the biggest international operator out of Wellington, building on a strong pedigree of operating across the Tasman to the capital since 1961.

Qantas is on an aggressive international expansion. Its new daily service between Brisbane and Wellington started at the weekend and it has announced bigger planes on new flights between Perth and Paris, and resumed flights to Shanghai.

It has also started flights from Brisbane to the Solomon Islands, while subsidiary Jetstar has launched Brisbane-Tokyo services.

The airline has said it is on track for international capacity to reach 100 per cent of pre-Covid levels around the middle of next year. The new Qantas service between Brisbane and Wellington started on Sunday, making the Australian airline Wellington’s largest international airline by total seats and the number of return flights operated - well ahead of any other airline.

From this month, Qantas will be operating 28 Wellington return flights across the Tasman each week, totalling more than 450,000 international seats a year - up 23 per cent from the pre-Covid number.

Qantas international chief executive (and former Air New Zealand revenue boss) Cam Wallace says his new airline regards the transtasman market as “incredibly important”.

“New Zealand is an incredibly important part of the Qantas Group network,” said Wallace. “We’ve been flying across the Tasman for more than 50 years and with more than 200 return flights available between Qantas and Jetstar each week, we’re offering more seats for Kiwi travellers than we did before Covid.”

Wallace knows the potential of Wellington well. The airport promotes itself as being a hub to a catchment of one million potential passengers who otherwise have to make international connections through Auckland - Air New Zealand’s international base.

“The launch of daily Qantas flights to Brisbane provides a new opportunity for Wellingtonians to explore Queensland, and just in time for the peak summer,” said Wallace.

Wellington Airport chief executive Matt Clarke said the Qantas group, including Jetstar, has 54 per cent of international capacity versus 41 per cent for Air New Zealand, with the airport’s remaining international flights operated by Fiji Airways.

A Qantas Boeing 747SP at Wellington Airport in the early 1980s. Photo / Bruce Johnson

Passengers flying out of Wellington to connect to Qantas group long-haul services had a choice where they connected.

“You can either go through Auckland if you fancy a brisk walk [between the domestic and international terminals] or you can go by Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane. Once you’re over the ditch, there’s a bigger suite of options and the pricing is usually very competitive,” Clarke said.

From 2025, Qantas plans non-stop flights from Sydney to London and New York, meaning passengers from Wellington could reach those centres with just one stop.

Clarke said Wellington had always been significant for Qantas, which once bought two Boeing 747SP (Special Performance) jumbo jets specifically designed for shorter runways, and the airline had maintained a consistent double daily service to Sydney.

The use of a 94-seat Embraer E190 jet on the new Brisbane service could be the forerunner of more expansion. “I think it’s really exciting to see a smaller regional jet on the Tasman because it does create a whole lot of economically-viable options for those city pairs that can’t necessarily sustain the big widebodies at any sort of frequency.”

Clarke said the future introduction of Airbus A220 aircraft - which seat 137 passengers and have a longer range - was even more exciting. This could put destinations such as Perth in the mix.

Former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said in June that new transtasman city pairs were on the radar, once the airline had sufficient capacity.

Simon Russell, chief executive of Auckland-based Eagle Aviation Consulting, said smaller narrow-gauge aircraft provided additional flexibility to supplement peak days of the week, or add additional frequency to and from Australia on round trips, using the same crew and aircraft on the same day.

“New Zealand cities, other than Wellington, could be strategic targets to re-establish Tasman flights with narrower-gauge aircraft,” Russell said.

While there is nothing in the next 12-month schedule to indicate other routes or cities in New Zealand with E190s flying, schedules can change for international trips within a few months if the demand is there.

“Post-Covid, there is pent-up demand on both sides of the Tasman, so the market offers new opportunities for airlines,” said Russell.

Qantas was building up a fleet of about 50 narrowbody E190s and A220s.

“Revenue yield and cost break-even at commercial load factor will be crucial decisions on how and where Qantas deploys the aircraft over time.”

Back home, Qantas faces a torrid annual shareholders meeting tomorrow after a series of scandals over “ghost flights”, illegally sacking workers and executive pay. Major investors have expressed a lack of confidence in the way the airline has been run and say it has a long way to go to regain trust.

Chief executive Joyce left months earlier than planned with a $20-million-plus exit package, and chairman Richard Goyder’s commitment to resign before next year’s annual meeting comes too late for the airline’s critics.