Qantas' Perth-London Receives Huge Demand Already

4th May 2017

Even though it's not scheduled to commence until March 2018, Qantas is already receiving huge demand from its customers for its new 9,000 miles non-stop flight between Australia and London. The first batch of tickets for a 17-hour flight went on sale last Thursday and, according to travel agents, sales broke all records and there are almost no more seats (at least in time of writing this article).

Return tickets for the Economy Class are sold at USD$1410 or AUS$1904.

Qantas Chief Operating Officer Alan Joyce said before the ticket launch:

"The opportunities this opens are huge. It's great news for travellers because it will make it easier to get to London. It's great news for Western Australia because it will bring jobs and tourism."

A spokesman for the airline said:

"Like most airlines, our booking system loads schedules and fares almost a year prior to departure, so each day new flights become available for booking with plenty of options for customers wanting to travel on our new Perth-London direct service."

Luke Chittock from Amity Travel said that he never seen this amount of demand for a flight:

"I have never seen a flight like this generate this much demand. I knew it would be popular but this has exceeded my expectations."

The biggest Australian airline will fly the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner planes for between Perth and London.

Qantas Full-Year Pre-Tax Profit Exceeds Expectations

Another thing exceeded expectations when it comes to Qantas and that's its full-year profit. The Australian carrier posted a forecast full-year underlying pre-tax profit of AUS$1.35 billion, to AUS$1.4 billion for the financial year ending on 30th June, which is slightly above the average AUS$1.34 estimate that analysts had and is also the second highest in the history of the Flying Kangaroo.

However, considering the full-year guidance, this means a fall of 8.5 per cent to 12 per cent from the previous year record of AUS$1.53 billion underlying pre-tax profit.

Qantas said that its forecast and expectations are based on better domestic market conditions and moderated conditions in the international market.