Qantas have been struggling to make money on their international routes for years now. To try and turn this around, they’re cancelling their joint venture on the Kangaroo routes with British Airways and aligning themselves with Emirates instead. The single daily services to Sydney and Melbourne will operate at similar timings but operate via Dubai instead of Singapore.

Qantas did operate a twice daily services to both Sydney and Melbourne for a time with lunchtime departures from Heathrow. Certainly one of the services routed via Hong Kong (Sydney I recall). This allowed the aircraft a shorter time on the ground in London, however if the services aren’t profitable there is no point in operating them. Whilst Qantas are still struggling on the London services the evening departures are still the most attractive due to the onward connections offered to other cities in Australia and New Zealand. The inbound flights from Australia are also times to connect from most detinations too.

British Airways also cancelled their direct service to Melbourne a few years ago and have scaled back their Sydney service to a single daily flight, the original second flight now terminating in Bangkok and having 8 hours on the ground there. British Airways are also switching their Sydney service to a 777-300 at the beginning of the summer schedule.

It will be interesting to see what BA do once their joint business agreement with Qantas ends at the end of March, however with so many carriers offering connections to Australia now will new services be commercially viable?