Why Qantas is flexing its muscles on the Tasman

Qantas will pass rival Air New Zealand with seat capacity out of Christchurch with new flights from later this year as it builds connections to its growing long-haul network.

The Australian airline already outstrips Air New Zealand for international seats out of Wellington and its head of international says more flights could be on the way.

“We are flying more people across the Tasman than we did pre-Covid with up to 180 return flights each week. We’ll continue to look for opportunities to grow it further where there is demand,“ said Cam Wallace, head of Qantas international and freight and a former Air New Zealand executive.

His airline is adding more transtasman flights in response to strong demand from customers travelling to New Zealand.

From late October it will add up to 260,000 additional seats across three of its transtasman routes over 12 months, compared to its current schedule.

The changes represent an almost 50 per cent increase in capacity across the three routes and a 7 per cent increase for Qantas’ broader transtasman network and follow other recent network additions including the launch of Wellington-Brisbane late last year.

• Christchurch-Brisbane: flights to increase from daily to between 10 to 12 per week from late October, adding up to 1700 seats on the route each week.

• Christchurch-Melbourne: flights to increase from daily to 12 per week over the December/January peak and continue between 10 to 12 per week through 2025, adding up to 1700 seats on the route each week.

• Wellington-Melbourne: flights to increase from daily to 10 per week between September 2024 and April 2025, adding up to 1000 seats on the route each week. All three routes are operated with the airline’s Boeing 737 aircraft.

“We’ve been growing our transtasman network over the last six months with new routes, larger aircraft and more flights to support sustained demand,” Wallace said.

“These additional flights will see us operate almost double daily services from Melbourne and Brisbane to Christchurch, offering business and leisure customers more choice in the time of day they’d like to travel.“

Qantas is adding new Airbus A220s to its fleet to replace its Embraer aircraft which would give it scope to expand into other New Zealand airports, when it has enough of the new planes and if there is sufficient demand.

Christchurch Airport’s general manager of aeronautical development, Gordon Bevan, said Qantas and Air New Zealand’s capacity to the main centres in Australia was close before the latest announcement.

“They were like for like so this really puts Qantas ahead on capacity.“

Qantas also had a joint venture with Emirates which operates an Airbus A380 to Sydney (and beyond to Dubai) daily providing even more seats.

Qantas and Air New Zealand approached the transtasman differently.

Bevan said Air NZ concentrated on taking passengers between Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane whereas Qantas had a bigger outlook.

More than half of Qantas passengers were connecting beyond the gateway cities.

“From the lens that Qantas looks at through it is not so much about how we’ll get more people to Sydney. It’s how we’ll get more people on the Qantas network,“ he said.

While Qantas would have more seats that didn’t mean the gateway cities would grow commensurately in size.

“For us, that’s really important because you don’t want 100 per cent of the seats dedicated to just take people to Sydney and also we need those pipelines to our growth market because it’s what sits at the other end of the pipeline of interest to us.“

This allowed better connections to Qantas’ long-haul market into Asia and Europe.

“That’s what Qantas is developing rapidly and that determines the timeline on when they’ve launched these services (to Christchurch). Since the end of Covid restrictions, Qantas are block by block building back their long-haul network and reaching a point now where they’re confident enough to put in the Christchurch block to connect with it.“

Bevan said Qantas had been in the market for decades, and knew what Christchurch was capable of.

There were more visitors to the city for special events now it had largely been rebuilt after the earthquakes with its Te Pae convention centre a drawcard and the new indoor stadium Te Kaha on track to open in 2026.

“All of the the reasons for travel will be in place. These are structural changes,“ he said.

Christchurch Airport had enjoyed a strong summer with United Airlines beginning seasonal services from San Francisco and Cathay Pacific resuming after a Covid-19 enforced pause.

Qantas is also flying more than Air NZ to Wellington.

Before the latest announcement Qantas group, including Jetstar, had 54 per cent of international capacity out of Wellington versus 41 per cent for Air New Zealand, with the airport’s remaining international flights operated by Fiji Airways.

Air New Zealand is facing fleet problems with up to five of its A320/21 fleet grounded at any time because of Pratt & Whitney engine issues. It has canned Auckland-Hobart services over winter and its domestic capacity has been crimped, helping its strategy of raising prices to fly around the country as it faces a tough second half of the financial year.

Grant Bradley has been working at the Herald since 1993. He is the Business Herald’s deputy editor and covers aviation and tourism.