Qantas announce seasonal SYD-Sapporo services with A330

[MarkR]

https://www.qantasnewsroom.com.au/me...ts-to-sapporo/

Qantas will launch new direct seasonal flights between Sydney and Sapporo, meeting a growing demand from Australians wanting to travel to the popular Japanese ski holiday destination.

To coincide with the peak ski season, Qantas will fly three times per week to Sapporo’s New Chitose Airport between 16 December 2019 and 28 March 2020.* The flights will be operated with Qantas’ upgraded Airbus A330 aircraft, offering more than 10,000 seats on the route over this period.

Qantas will be the first airline to fly direct between Sydney and Sapporo and the service will be the national carrier’s fifth route between Australia and Japan.

Qantas International Acting CEO Naren Kumar said Sapporo was a highly sought-after holiday destination for Australian travellers.

“Travel between Australia and Japan is booming. These new flights make it easier for Australians to reach Hokkaido’s popular ski resorts like Niseko and Rusutsu,” said Mr Kumar.

“The number of Australians travelling to Japan has more than doubled over the past five years, with almost 500,000 Australians visiting Japan in the last 12 months alone. We expect Japan’s popularity to continue with the country hosting a number of major international sporting events in the next two years.

“Domestic connections with Jetstar Japan will also open up new options for customers who want to travel beyond the Hokkaido region for both business and leisure.”

“In the past two years we’ve expanded our network by adding two new destinations in Japan to meet this growing demand: a year-round service to Osaka, and now seasonal services to Sapporo. We’ll continue to look for opportunities to meet customer demand.”

The new service is also expected to drive tourism by creating a new option for travellers from the Hokkaido region to experience summer in Australia. Qantas will be working with the Hokkaido Government to promote the new service to travellers from across Australia and Japan.

Customers can book Qantas’ new Sapporo service from today at qantas.com or through travel agents.

The Qantas Group operates the largest Australia-Japan network and through Jetstar Japan, the Group also operates the largest low-cost domestic network across Japan. The new Sapporo service adds to Qantas’ flights from Sydney to Tokyo (Haneda) and Osaka, Melbourne-Tokyo (Narita) and Brisbane-Tokyo (Narita) and Jetstar’s flights from Cairns to Tokyo (Narita) and Osaka, and Gold Coast to Tokyo (Narita).

*Subject to government and regulatory approval.

[James Smith]

Very good news. I have been wondering, prior to this announcement whether QANTAS may be looking at returning to Nagoya after commencing Osaka services. They used to fly there daily with 747s in the noughties according to my trusty old QF timetable.

[Michael Mak]

Originally Posted by James Smith

Very good news. I have been wondering, prior to this announcement whether QANTAS may be looking at returning to Nagoya after commencing Osaka services. They used to fly there daily with 747s in the noughties according to my trusty old QF timetable.

AO also served NGO too - I remember flying on the SYD-CNS sector of the SYD-CNS-NGO flight in June 2006 - the final month of AO operation. Has JQ ever flown to NGO?

[Shaal L]

Originally Posted by Michael Mak

AO also served NGO too - I remember flying on the SYD-CNS sector of the SYD-CNS-NGO flight in June 2006 - the final month of AO operation. Has JQ ever flown to NGO?

glad you posted about AO. I sort of remembered , them flying to Japan from Sydney via Cairns but just couldn't remember which city it was. JQ used to do CNS-NGO over a decade ago

[Yusef D]

was Nagoya a more attractive destination before KIX opened the second runway?

[Torin Wilson]

Didn't the JQ flight do NGO-KIX-CNS at one point ?

[Justin L]

Yes Torin I believe you are correct.