US-Australia Flights Hit New High

QANTAS flights to the United States will hit a record 40 flights per week by March 2006 as Australia's national flag carrier beefs up services on the lucrative Trans-Pacific  air route.

This is to counter criticism that the Australia-USA flight route is inadequately serviced.

Qantas plans to add an additional weekly flight to Los Angeles in March '06 to coincide with the start of new services to San Francisco.

Qantas' executive general manager, Mr John Borghetti, says the new L.A. service will depart Sydney early on Fridays, while return flights to Sydney will land on Friday nights.

The new flight services will take Qantas' flight schedules well beyond the peak they experienced during the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

The busiest time that's ever existed between Australia and American was during the Olympic Games when we offered all sorts of schedules. And there were around 35 services a week.

Qantas is ramping up its capacity on the US route amid attempts by Singapore Airlines to break into the lucrative route and criticism from some tourism operators that US business is being turned away because of a lack of seats.

But the flying kangaroo says it is struggling to convince Americans to take the trip, despite deals offering return fares of less than $1000 (A$1370) with three free flights within Australia thrown in.

Air fares out of the US have never been lower, than they are right now.

The Australia-US route will get a further boost from Qantas when it begins introducing its double-decker Airbus A380 flagships in 2007.

A Qantas spokesperson announced some months back that its first A380s would be dedicated to US services from Melbourne and Sydney.