Qantas has announced four weekly flights between Sydney and Bengaluru. The flights will start from September 14, 2022 and the airline will operate the Airbus A330 aircraft on this route. This new route cements Bengaluru’s position as the southern gateway in India. This will be second destination for the airline in India and it is skipping Mumbai but opting for Bengaluru.
These will be the first non-stop flights between Australia and southern India by any airline and will cut almost three hours off the current fastest travel time from Sydney to Bengaluru, a growing technology and financial services hub.
With a population of 13 million people, the Bengaluru community has strong connections to Australia for both business travel and people visiting friends and relatives. These trade connections are expected to strengthen following the recent announcement of the Australia-India free trade agreement.
Qantas will continue to operate up to five flights a week between Melbourne and Delhi, making it the only airline offering direct flights between Australia and both northern and southern India.
The flights to Bengaluru will operate as per below timings
QF67 SYD0930 – 1655BLR
QF68 BLR1835 – 1020(+1)SYD
Flights will operate on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Planned codeshare agreement set to open up India
Qantas intends to enter into a codeshare agreement with IndiGo, India’s largest domestic carrier, which will give customers improved one-stop access to more than 50 Indian cities.
The proposed agreement will mean Qantas passengers can transit seamlessly from Qantas flights in Bengaluru, Delhi, or Singapore onto IndiGo services to other major Indian cities as well as smaller ones such as Pune and Goa.
Under the planned agreement, Qantas Frequent Flyers will be able to earn and redeem points on connecting IndiGo flights (QF code only) and IndiGo will recognise Qantas Frequent Flyer benefits for tiered members (Silver, Gold, Platinum and Platinum One) including priority check-in, additional baggage allowance and priority baggage.
Qantas customers travelling on IndiGo will enjoy the same baggage allowance for the entire journey as well as complimentary food and drinks. The partnership will extend to Jetstar customers who will be able to book connecting flights on IndiGo services through its Jetstar Connect platform on jetstar.com from late April.
IndiGo has now become the airline of choice for codeshare in India for its scale as well as dominance. Lack of options on the full service side and acceptability of a FSC – LCC codeshare is helping IndiGo sign up more deals. The airline already has a codeshare or is in final stages of implementation with Turkish Airlines (Star Alliance), Qatar Airways (Oneworld), Air France – KLM (SkyTeam), American Airlines (Oneworld).
Read: India – Australia market becomes competitive
Network Thoughts
In 2013, Air India launched flights to Australia after a gap of 22 years and it was the first direct flight from India to Australia after four years since Qantas pulled out in 2012! THe airline last operated to Delhi in 1974! Air India is now set to get competition on the India – Australia sector and on the exact same sectors which Air India operates! The airline has operated over 60 flights in the past 12 months to get Australians back to Australia. These flights were operated on behalf of the Australian government.
The A330-200 of Qantas feature 27 business class seats and 224 in economy. Air India, which operates the Dreamliner on routes to Australia, has 256 seats – a mix of 18 business class seats and 238 economy class seats. Air India continues to operate daily services to both Sydney and Melbourne from New Delhi.
You can now order Network Thoughts baggage tags and/or book marks!
Follow NetworkThoughts on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram and YouTube.
NetworkThoughts 
Would be nice to if you can add your thoughts on “Some of the reason why Qantas preferred Bangalore over Mumbai”
LikeLike