Key Points
- Qantas will fly to Palau for the first time.
- The airline was awarded a government contract.
- Flights will begin “in the coming months”.
Qantas has announced it will serve Palau for the first time, as the airline revealed an expanded schedule for next year.
Weekly flights between Brisbane and this small Pacific country will go on sale “in the coming weeks” and will take off “in the coming months”, Qantas said in a statement released on Wednesday.
Qantas said it had secured a government contract to “help maintain strong trade and tourism links between Australia and Palau”.
Palau, located about a six-hour flight from Brisbane, is one of the smallest countries in the world, with a population of less than 20,000. It is made up of around 300 islands, eight of which are inhabited, and is a popular destination for scuba diving.
The country’s capital is Ngerulmud, located on Babeldaob, the largest island.
The airline will also drop an international route, no longer connecting Sydney with Seoul, the Korean capital. Its budget airline Jetstar will increase flights on the Sydney-Seoul route.
Cam Wallace, Qantas group international managing director, said the airline was responding to “increasing demand”.
He said Qantas would redeploy its aircraft to other routes “where we are seeing strong demand”.
The national carrier announced that from February 2025, it would add around 220,000 seats to its international network over 12 months.
This figure will be further strengthened by the arrival of larger aircraft flying the Darwin-Singapore route.
The company previously said it would launch the route in March 2025 with the Embraer E190, but announced on Monday that the larger 137-seat A220 would now operate five times a week.
Qantas will resume flights to Nouméa, earlier this year, forced him to cancel the route.
Flights from Melbourne to Dallas will increase from three to four per week, while flights from Sydney to New York will increase from six to five per week.
