Qantas and London *

In what is a significant move Qantas has confirmed it will operate its flagship direct route from Australia to London via Darwin when international flights resume next month and the reopening of Australia’s border.

The national carrier has reached an agreement with the Northern Territory Government and Darwin Airport to temporarily reroute its flights from Melbourne and Sydney through Darwin.

The Darwin hub arrangement will be in place in time for borders reopening from 14 November until at least April 2022 when London flights are scheduled to operate via Perth again. While this is a temporary change to the route, Qantas will watch how it performs and is open-minded about what it could lead to down the track.

For those that have not been, and are thinking of a stop-over, Darwin (population is now said to be 135,000) is an interesting small city and was visited by BTN in April 2018.  See ON TOUR: Newcastle and Darwin

Flight time from London is about 16hrs and to Sydney just over 4hrs.  The Perth routing from Heathrow is more like 17hrs plus 4hrs to Sydney.  Melbourne is also offered each way.

www.qantas.com

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OUR READERS' FINEST WORDS (All times and dates are GMT)

All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 100 words maximum

Peter North, Tenterden

Darwin is an interesting city to visit and the NT as a whole is fascinating. However, I thought the point was that QF are planning to route their London flights via Darwin not to sell that city as a destination?

Bob Bush, Melbourne

Great idea to route via Darwin but Qantas will not find many passengers for that outback city. Perth has a population of 2m, Darwin 80,000. There can only be one winner.