Australian airline Qantas has started selling tickets for its non-stop service between Perth and London.
Daily flights on the route start on March 24 2018 and form part of a new Melbourne-Perth-London return service.
The new service will take on the QF9/QF10 flight code currently used on Qantas’ daily A380 London-Dubai-Melbourne route, which itself will cease in March next year. The carrier says that “With a faster flying time and quicker connections in Perth, customers travelling to London from Melbourne will reduce their total travel time by more than an hour compared with existing Qantas A380 services”.
Flight times for the new route are as follows:
- QF9 departs Melbourne at 1520, arriving into Perth at 1720, then departs Perth at 1850 and lands into Heathrow at 0510 the following day
- QF10 departs Heathrow at 1330, arriving into Perth at 1315 the following day, then departs Perth at 1445 and arrives into Melbourne at 2010.
Economy fares start from £1,095 return between London and Perth, and £1,115 between London and Melbourne. Premium economy starts from £2,335 on the London-Perth route and £2,435 between London and Melbourne. Finally business class fares start from £4,240 on both the London-Perth and London-Melbourne routes.
Qantas says that economy fares “are expected to drop below £900 return during deal periods”.
The Perth-London service will operate through Qantas’ existing domestic terminals at Perth, which are being upgraded “with new facilities and lounges to accommodate international flights”.
The new non-stop service will be just under 14,500km in length, making it the world’s third longest commercial passenger flight (see our round-up of other contenders here). It will also be the world’s longest Dreamliner flight.