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Brisbane Airport is expecting its international capacity to be 90 per cent recovered by December, with seven new routes to launch in approximately the next month.
Brisbane international traffic was 81 per cent of pre-COVID-19 figures in September, and the airport anticipates an extra 1.3 million international seats to be added to and from the city over the coming 12 months as airlines increase capacity and roll out new services.
On 29 October, Qantas will commence three weekly services to Honiara and seven to Wellington, while United Airlines will increase to a daily San Francisco service.
Jetstar’s five-times-weekly service to Tokyo (Narita) will begin on 30 October, moving from the Gold Coast, while China Eastern will fly three times weekly to Shanghai from 1 November and China Southern four times weekly to Guangzhou from 18 November. Both of these services will increase to seasonal daily from 11 December.
United will also begin four Los Angeles services per week starting 1 December, while domestically, Rex will fly seven times per week to Adelaide from 30 October.
According to Ryan Both, executive general manager of aviation at Brisbane Airport, the new routes will take Brisbane to 29 international destinations, boosting the Queensland tourism economy.
“We’re excited about the return of the first tourists flying direct from mainland China to Queensland. The restart of China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines to Brisbane signals the return of what was Queensland’s most lucrative tourism market, one that delivers thousands of jobs to the economy,” Both said.
“We also celebrate United Airlines significantly boosting flights to Brisbane. It was exactly 12 months ago that United launched 3 flights per week from San Francisco to Brisbane with the help of Queensland’s Attracting Aviation Investment Fund.
“Now this will become a daily service, and United will also add Los Angeles as a destination in time for Christmas. This really demonstrates the success of the Queensland Government and airports joint initiative to kick-start and grow new services to boost the state’s visitor economy.”
