Qantas Flies Back MNL from Brisbane

31 October 2024

Australian flag carrier Qantas has officially restarted its route from Brisbane to Manila after ending the flight in 2014.

Flight QF97 departed Brisbane at 21:46 local time on October 28, 2024, using 296 seater Airbus A330-300 aircraft, with registration VH-EBG, arriving Manila at approximately 3:00 AM local time on October 29, 2024. Return Flight departed Manila at 5:10 AM and arrived at Brisbane airport at 2:11 PM on Tuesday.

The route will operate four times per week every Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The route is expected to add more than 100,000 annual seats between Australia and the Philippines, and will also improve connectivity for passengers traveling to the Philippines from Auckland, Christchurch, and Wellington in New Zealand.

The reinstated Brisbane service complements the Flying Kangaroo’s existing daily route from Sydney to Manila, and will add to what is already more than 300,000 Qantas seats to and from the Philippines every year.

Qantas will celebrate 75 years of passenger services between the two countries in 2025.

Qanta Expands Manila Services

Opens Brisbane-Manila Flight

15 May 2024

Australian flag carrier Qantas will begin direct flights between Brisbane and Manila beginning October 28 2024, four times a week. Flight services will be flown with Airbus A330-300 aircraft.

Flight QF97 will depart Brisbane at 7.15pm every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday arriving Manila's Terminal 3 at 1am the following day.

Flight QF98 will depart Manila at 2.45am arriving Brisbane at 12.20pm the same day. 

Qantas also offers flight services from Sydney to Manila daily with Airbus A330-300 aircraft.

According to the airline, the new route is part of a series of changes made to Qantas’ Asia network, which has seen the axing of Sydney-Shanghai flights beginning July 28, due to poor demand but boosting Sydney-Singapore, Sydney-Bengaluru, Brisbane-Singapore and introducing Brisbane-Manila, due to 30% hike of business travelers to the Philippines.

Flight numbers QF97/QF98 to Manila were used to be assigned to Brisbane-Hong Kong route, which indicates Qantas not returning any time soon. 

 “Since Covid, the demand for travel between Australia and China has not recovered as strongly as expected,” Qantas International CEO Cam Wallace said in a statement.

“In some months, our flights to and from Shanghai have been operating around half full. That’s why we’ve decided to suspend this route and boost flying to other popular destinations with a new route from Brisbane to Manila and additional flights to Singapore and Bengaluru,” said Wallace. 

The airline said “the move will create more choice for our corporate and leisure customers” and make it “even easier” for them to access the places they need to travel to in Asia.

“We’ll continue to maintain a presence in China through our partners and our existing flights to Hong Kong and look to return to Shanghai in the future,” adds Wallace.

CEB Performance at Oz Dismal

Qantas Leads Pack

 12 March 2015

Despite low cost frills, Budget carrier Cebu Pacific failed to fill its seats to Sydney as the airline manages to sell just 50.4 per cent of its offered seats last year, making it the worst performing airline to Australia by load factor.

Total load factor to Manila stands at 74.7 per cent in 2014 according to reports published by Australia's Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (Bitre) under the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development.

Meanwhile, the more expensive full-service carrier Qantas filled 88.7 per cent of its offered seats to Manila, growing 8 per cent year on year which was also the airline's best performing route by loads.

Philippine Airlines also improved filling its offered seats to 70.4 per cent despite new services offered by Cebu Pacific. The airline also manages to grow Brisbane from 19,528 pax in 2013 to 31,794 in 2014.

PAL operates flights from Manila to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Darwin, while Cebu Pacific and Qantas operates flights to Sydney.

Qantas A380 Visits LTP for Cabin Retrofit

April 29, 2012

Qantas Airlines (QF) A380, VH-OQD  operating flight number QF6025, arrived in Manila at 12:40 this morning for Cabin Retrofit at Lufthansa Technik Philippines (LTP) Hangar. Qantas A380 is the second appearance of the whale jet in Philippine soil to date. Photo courtesy of Bob Reyes.