SYDNEY, 11 March 2020: Qantas Group has cut more international flights or changed aircraft types to reduce capacity by almost a quarter for the next six months.
The latest cuts follow the spread of the Covid-19 virus in Europe and North America over the past two weeks, as well as its continued spread through Asia, which has resulted in a sudden and significant drop in booking demand.
These additional changes will bring the total international capacity reduction for Qantas and Jetstar from 5 per cent to 23 per cent versus the same time last year and extend the cuts until mid-September 2020.
The biggest reductions remain focussed on Asia down 31%. Capacity reductions to the US (down 19%), the UK (down 17%) and Trans-Tasman (down 10%) will also be made in line with booking trends.
Rather than exit routes altogether, Qantas will use smaller aircraft and reduce t flights to maintain overall connectivity.
This approach results in eight of the airline’s largest aircraft, the Airbus A380, grounded until mid-September. A further two A380s are undergoing scheduled heavy maintenance and cabin upgrades, leaving two of its A380s flying.
In response to strong customer demand for the direct Perth-London service, the existing Sydney-Singapore-London return service (QF1 and QF2) will be temporarily rerouted to become a Sydney-Perth-London service effective 20 April.
The start of Qantas’ new Brisbane-Chicago route will be delayed from 15 April to mid-September.
Jetstar will make significant cuts to its international network, including suspending flights to Bangkok and reducing flights from Australia to Vietnam and Japan by almost half. Jetstar’s daily Gold Coast to Seoul flight was suspended last week.
Domestically, Qantas and Jetstar capacity reductions will be increased from 3% to 5% through to mid-September 2020, in line with broader economic conditions.
In total, this is the equivalent of grounding 38 Qantas and Jetstar aircraft[2] across the international and domestic network. The Group’s total capacity reduction changes from 4% (announced on 20 February) to 17% for the last quarter of FY20.
Announcing the changes, Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce, said: “In the past fortnight we’ve seen a sharp drop in bookings on our international network as the global coronavirus spread continues.
“We expect lower demand to continue for the next several months, so rather than taking a piecemeal approach, we’re cutting capacity out to mid-September.”
