Qantas Hola Dallas, adios SFO

Qantas has announced they will now fly direct to Dallas Fort Worth from Sydney from May, 2011 using a Boeing 747-400ER. It is intended when Qantas finally get their 787s, they will be used on this route.

At 13 879 km (8,624 miles), this will be  the third-longest route in the world! The flights would take about 17 hours. There are three huge pluses about this:

  1. We can avoid LAX (my most hated airport) to get to the middle of the USA. DFW is a much more user friendly airport and is well connected to the rest of the USA and South America. I rank it seventh best in world!
  2. It will save time. Flights from Syd to DFW take 20-21 hours now via LAX. Currently Flights from SYD to NYC via LAX take 22-23 hours now. Via Dallas this could fall by an hour or two 
  3. it connects passengers straight into the middle of the American Airlines network (Qantas and American are One World partners)

The downsides:

  1. the airline will drop San Francisco which has not generated enough corporate traffic
  2. the flight back will stop at Brisbane which will negate a little of the time saving. This is because the distance si too far and with the strong Pacific winds, there wont be enough fuel reserves to make it to Sydney non stop! Brisbane is 400km closer from Dallas (clearly there is not going to be much reserve fuel!

United are talking about deploying the new 787 on an Auckland-Houston flight, Suddenly, down under and Texas are looking closer!

Watch for Qantas opening flight deals and watch for United and Delta to offer deals between Dallas and Australia!
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