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Qantas says it will likely review its international fares every two weeks, with further increases likely, due to the continuing volatility around fuel prices.
In remarks made at the Destination Australia 2026 tourism conference on Thursday, Qantas International CEO Cam Wallace said the ongoing Iran conflict has presented an “incredibly volatile and fast moving” situation which the airline is monitoring closely.
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The Flying Kangaroo has already hiked international ticket prices in response to rising fuel costs, while Air New Zealand is set to cut more than 1,000 flights across the next couple of months.
“One thing that we have seen that all airlines have seen, and all consumers, is the cost of fuel has gone up materially, and what it means for us is obviously our costs have gone up materially, so consumers will see some higher prices,” said Wallace.
“We just put prices up, as I think most airlines have in the short term, but we haven’t seen any reduction of that. And, importantly, fuel prices are actually still going up.”
Wallace pointed to Qantas’ most recent half-yearly results, which showed the group’s international revenue down slightly year-on-year in the first half of FY25.
“That’s because clearly more capacity came into the market because there was a long tail post the pandemic,” he said.
“In the last three weeks, there’s a kind of unique volatility, so trying to pick where airfares go in the next three months is going to be really, really challenging because our costs have increased, the likes of which I’ve never seen in like 30 years at airlines.
“So, we’re going to have to keep looking at those fares on a kind of a bi-weekly basis, but what I would say is the market in Australia is very attractive, and the more carriers that come into Australia, the more capacity comes into the market, the more that puts downward pressure on fares.”
The airline has also seen a spike in short-term international demand, Wallace said, with Qantas looking to reshuffle more fleet onto Europe services in coming months.
Bookings on routes including Perth-London, Perth-Paris and services via Singapore are more than 90 per cent full in March, up 15 per cent on normal load factors for this time of year.
“We’re just keeping an eye on our markets and making sure we can deploy as much capacity as practically we can in the short term to get as many people where they want to go, and that includes looking at ways to find more capacity to get into Europe,” said Wallace.
The comments come as Transport Minister Catherine King moves to reassure Australians that short-term jet fuel supplies are secure and that Qantas and Virgin Australia are “well placed” to handle immediate disruptions.
