Qantas dumps flights from Sydney to Beijing from February 2020

Australian airline Qantas has announced it will axe one of its Sydney services after a third attempt in 35 years to make it viable.

Qantas has announced it will dump its Sydney to Beijing route from next March. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images.

Qantas is axing its underperforming Sydney-Beijing route from March due to stiff competition from Chinese airlines and weak business-class demand.

The Australian carrier had relaunched the route in 2017 in its third attempt in 35 years to make it viable and had already lowered the number of weekly flights to five from seven in 2018.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce announced flight changes to Beijing several years ago. Picture Renee Nowytarger / The Australian

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It will maintain daily flights from Sydney to Shanghai, where it partners with hub carrier China Eastern Airlines.

Qantas said since it had reintroduced the direct Sydney-Beijing services in 2017, capacity from Beijing to Australia on Chinese airlines had grown by about 20 per cent and was expected to grow even further in 2020 at a time when broader international capacity to Australia was declining.

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The airline will maintain daily flights from Sydney to Shanghai. Picture: AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi.

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“Our flights to Beijing have been underperforming for some time due to weaker demand as well as a big increase in capacity from other airlines,” Qantas International chief executive Tino La Spina said on Tuesday.

“China is a significant market for Qantas, and our direct services from and to Shanghai are performing well. With Beijing, we’re responding to what the market is telling us.”

Qantas said it would redeploy the Airbus SE A330 capacity it had been using on the route to elsewhere in Asia.

Last week, Virgin Australia announced it would axe its loss-making service from Melbourne to Hong Kong but will continue flying to Chinese territory from Sydney. The route, according to the airline’s CEO Paul Scurrah, had been underperforming. Mr Scurrah said the airline would redirect the A330-200 aircraft on a new route between Brisbane to Tokyo from March 2020.