QANTAS has been given provisional rights to operate to the UK from Sydney via Hong Kong and plans to introduce the service one month before the Virgin Atlantic inaugural set for 7 December (see ABTN 28 June). Qantas initially plans to operate three services a week with daily flights to London on this route by 2006. The airline currently offers two daily services, one via Singapore and the other through Bangkok both with Boeing 747-400 which will also be the aircraft for the Hong Kong route. With some of the Gulf states airlines now also flying to Australia there is going to be a lot of capacity on the route by the middle of 2005.
http://www.qantas.com.au