TravTalk India Online Magazine
With the passenger traffic between India and Australia increasing by the day, Qantas Airways ensures that it caters to all kinds of travel segments in India. The airline, flying three times a week from Delhi to Melbourne and five times a week from Bengaluru to Sydney, will be increasing flights between December 2024 and March 2025 to fly daily from Bengaluru, adding 12,000 seats.
Nisha Verma
Claiming that the India market is extremely important for them, Kunal Dewan, Country Manager India, Qantas Airways, says, “From our perspective, the India-Australia market has it all—large VFR traffic flows, robust corporate demand, incredible destination appeal and growth across all segments.”
Status check
Qantas flies three times a week from Delhi to Melbourne and five times a week from Bengaluru to Sydney. Commenting on the services, Dewan said, “Our services from Delhi primarily serve the point-to-point VFR market, while Bengaluru, in South India, is ideally positioned to connect Qantas services to Australia with our codeshare partner IndiGo’s domestic network. Owing to strong demand, we will be increasing flights from Bengaluru to Sydney to daily from December 2024 until March 2025, adding over 12,000 seats between the two cities over the four-month period.”
Global expansion
Talking about the growth plans, Dewan highlighted, “2024 is a busy year for Qantas International with a return to 100 per cent of our pre-COVID capacity, increases in Asian and North American flying, as well as several new markets in the South Pacific. One of our most notable new routes launched this month, with nonstop flights from Perth to Paris, enabled by the Qantas Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, operates the longest routes in our network. Qantas now operates on four of the world’s top 10 longest routes.” He added, “Looking ahead, we are planning for the delivery of 36 widebody A350 and 787 aircraft from Airbus and Boeing, which will arrive in the coming years. These aircraft will give Qantas unrivalled range capability and, with the special sub fleet of A350-1000ULRs ordered for Project Sunrise, the ability to fly nonstop from Sydney and Melbourne to London and New York – the next frontier of aviation.”
Trade ties
When it comes to engaging with the travel trade in India, Dewan informed, “We work hard to maximise coverage in India with our in-market sales teams constantly engaged with consolidators, OTAs, leisure/ tour operators, MICE, TMCs and others. We do this in our key online markets of Delhi and Bengaluru, but also in offline cities such as Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and others, customising our offerings instead of adopting a one-size-fits-all approach. We are also active in roadshows, travel fairs, virtual travel campaigns and customer visits, often discovering new market opportunities while travelling around the sub-continent and South Asia.”
Codeshare advantage
Qantas has a strong codeshare partnership with IndiGo. “This enables Qantas and IndiGo customers to seamlessly connect on flights between India and Australia. In May this year, we expanded this arrangement to enable customers to connect in Singapore, offering additional city pair connections for travellers between India and Australia. This is particularly helpful for our Indian customers travelling to Perth or Brisbane. Qantas and IndiGo now offer codeshare flights from 21 cities across India.”
Group benefits
The airline offers special discounted fares for Indian groups. “All IATA agents have access to these fares through our self-service tool, Qantas Agency Connect. The tool is fully automated to give immediate prices for itineraries that agents need. While our team can, of course, tailor packages as required, the groups tool is highly efficient for agents, giving the benefit of average pricing based on availability,” informed Dewan.
Upgrades in line
Qantas has been investing over `12 billion to improve customer experience over the past year. “Just last month, we unveiled our winter menu for Qantas International, which includes some fantastic new dishes, particularly in the Business Class cabin,” he said.
