The airline will offer refunds averaging $55 to around 61,000 passengers whose bookings were “repriced in a way that does not align with its policy” in some instances between 21 April 2020 and 31 March 2025, representing about 0.1 per cent of bookings made during that period.
Flown by the Boeing 707 “V-jet” VH-EBL, the hop from Sydney to Christchurch on 10 April, 1965, was the first ever commercial flight across the Tasman with a jet aircraft.
Starting 25 June, the low-cost carrier will operate four flights a week to Bali using its 180-seat A320-200 aircraft, adding more than 74,000 seats per year on the route.
Starting in June, the carrier, China’s largest and one of the country’s “Big Four”, will increase its A350-900 flights from four to seven per week between Brisbane and Guangzhou, adding 48,984 inbound seats to Queensland from China per year.
VH-X4F, which touched down in Canberra on 3 April, is the sixth A220 in the Qantas fleet, and flew passengers for the first time as QF1271 from Canberra to Melbourne on Monday.
The partnership marks the latest step in Qantas and Airbus’ wider US$200 million joint initiative launched in 2022, aimed at fast-tracking SAF production.