Qantas winds back the clock on airfares after airline awards snub

Qantas has put one million seats up for sale, including dirt-cheap flights to some of its most popular destinations, in the wake of its poor standing in the Skytrax best airline awards.

Qantas has countered negative publicity from this week’s Skytrax airline awards with a sure-fire passenger pleaser – an airfare sale.

High fares and average performance were thought to be behind the massive drop in Qantas’ rankings in the best airline category of the awards, from 5th last year to 17th in 2023.

The flying kangaroo also missed out on the best airline in the Australia-Pacific region, taking second place to Fiji Airways.

The rankings were based on thousands of passenger satisfaction surveys with Singapore Airlines claiming the top spot ahead of Qatar Airways, All Nippon Airlines and Emirates.

The Qantas sale announced on Friday, included a million seats on domestic and North American routes, with fares from $999 for Melbourne to Honolulu return, and $99 for Launceston-Melbourne (one-way).

Sydney-New York return fares were available from $1799, Brisbane-San Francisco return for $1299 and Perth-Dallas return for $2149.

Other “cheap” fares included Melbourne-Los Angeles return from $1199 and Adelaide-Vancouver return for $1599.

Those prices were available for selected travel dates for purchase until midnight on June 26, or until sold out prior.

San Francisco is among the destinations to which Qantas is offering sale fares. Picture: San Francisco Travel Association

One-way domestic sale fares covered Perth-Sydney for $299, Cairns to Melbourne for $249 and Gold Coast-Sydney for $119.

Qantas said the domestic flights were discounted on average 30 per cent from the normal lead-in fares on over 120 routes, with the sale ending on June 30.

Travel credits issued in the place of fares for Covid-related cancellations were able to be used when booking the sale fares, for travel this year or next, Qantas said.

High fares charged by Qantas and other airlines have helped lift carriers back into profit after the Covid pandemic ravaged their balance sheets, costing billions of dollars in revenue.

As a result, Qantas was expecting a record full year profit of close to $2.5bn, almost a billion above their previous best in 2018.

The airline’s recent investor day revealed Qantas domestic revenue was at 118 per cent of pre-Covid levels and international at 123 per cent despite capacity being well under 100 per cent.

Despite the cost of fares, there was little evidence to suggest they were dampening travel demand, particularly on international routes.

Meanwhile new on-time performance data from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics showed airlines were still a long way from pre-Covid punctuality levels.

Across all airlines, one in four or 26 per cent of flights arrived more than 15-minutes behind schedule in May, and close to 1400 services, or 3 per cent of flights were cancelled.

QantasLink had the best figures, landing 79.3 per cent of flights on time, while Jetstar again rated the worst with 35 per cent of flights delayed, and a 4.2 per cent cancellation rate.

New low cost carrier Bonza was not included in the monthly data, despite launching commercial passenger services in January.

A Department of Infrastructure spokeswoman said the BITRE was working with Bonza “to obtain and publish their air transport statistics”.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission report on domestic airlines noted Bonza’s on time performance rate was about 50 per cent.