{"id":823152,"date":"2025-05-06T09:35:47","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T07:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=823152"},"modified":"2025-12-11T08:38:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T06:38:05","slug":"new-international-flight-coming-to-south-africa-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/823152\/new-international-flight-coming-to-south-africa-this-year\/","title":{"rendered":"New international flight coming to South Africa this year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Qantas will reintroduce its route between Johannesburg and Perth, Australia, with direct flights taking off in December 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Qantas said that the new flights will provide South Africans with direct access to Perth, with easy connections to Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide via the carrier’s Australian network. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Customers will also have access to a new one-stop option to New Zealand, with the airline also introducing a direct flight between Perth and Auckland from December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Qantas has operated flights between South Africa and Australia since 1952, and currently offers a long-haul flight between Johannesburg and Sydney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The flight between Johannesburg and Sydney, which takes over 14 hours on the return, recently received an Airbus A380, which nearly doubled capacity and reintroduced First Class for customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re so excited to be launching a brand-new route, unlocking more travel options for South Africans looking to explore Australia, reconnect with family and friends, or discover somewhere new,” said Qantas International CEO Cam Wallace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy connecting Johannesburg directly with Perth, we\u2019re providing easier access to Western Australia as well as seamless connections to key cities across our Australian domestic network, including Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the new flights, Qantas will operate daily between Australia and South Africa, giving travellers more choice and flexibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fares are also available now on Qantas.com, with the inaugural Johannesburg to Perth service taking off from 7 December 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johannesburg to Perth will operate as QF66 on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, with an approximate flight time of 9 hours and 55 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The route will operate on a Qantas A330 aircraft, with 27 business class suites in a 1-2-1 configuration, each featuring direct aisle access and convertible into a lie-flat bed, and 224 economy seats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The seating arrangements are, however, subject to government and regulatory approval, and may change ahead of the route’s launch.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Qantas’ new routes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The new route is likely to be a setback for South African Airways (SAA), which launched a route between Johannesburg and Perth in April 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Perth-Johannesburg route forms part of SAA’s further international expansion, with the airline showing signs of recovery after posting heavy losses and needing billions in bailouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The airline recently introduced a route between Johannesburg and Tanzania’s Capital, Dar Es Salaam<\/a>, and expanded its routes to Nigeria, the DRC and Ghana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of Africa, SAA also operates a flight between Johannesburg and S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state-owned company also recently announced its plans to introduce flights to Frankfurt, Munich, London, and cities on the east coast of the US by March 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of these routes have operators, with Lufthansa<\/a>, for instance, introducing a new long-haul flight between Johannesburg and Munich in September last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The German carrier also operates routes between South Africa and Frankfurt, while Virgin Atlantic, British Airways and Norse Atlantic Airways introduce flights to and from London and South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

United Airlines also has flights between South Africa and the East Coast of the United States, even if the airline won’t expand its operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille recently claimed that United Airlines would increase its flights between South Africa and the USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, United, the world’s largest airline by fleet size, told BusinessTech<\/a> that it is not expanding its service to and from South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The airline will move one flight from its Newark\/New York and Johannesburg route to its Cape Town\/Newark route during the summer of 2025\/26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian carrier Qantas is bringing back its direct flight between Johannesburg and Perth, with flights restarting at the end of the year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":823160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[9996,17046,20375,3581,1675,2832],"class_list":["post-823152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-british-airways","tag-lufthansa","tag-norse","tag-qantas","tag-saa","tag-virgin-atlantic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823152"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846119,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823152\/revisions\/846119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}