Qantas will launch a new direct seasonal flights between Sydney and Sapporo meeting a growing demand from Australians wanting to travel to the Northern Japanese city to access the nearby mountains.
The airline will fly three times per week to Sapporo’s New Chitose Airport between 16 December 2019 and 28 March 2020. The flights will be operated with Qantas’ upgraded Airbus A330 aircraft, offering more than 10,000 seats on the route over this period.
Qantas will be the first airline to fly direct between Sydney and Sapporo and the service will be the national carrier’s fifth route between Australia and Japan.
Qantas International acting chief executive officer, Naren Kumar said: “Travel between Australia and Japan is booming. These new flights make it easier for Australians to reach Hokkaido’s popular ski resorts like Niseko and Rusutsu.
“The number of Australians travelling to Japan has more than doubled over the past five years, with almost 500,000 Australians visiting Japan in the last 12 months alone. We expect Japan’s popularity to continue with the country hosting a number of major international sporting events in the next two years.
“Domestic connections with Jetstar Japan will also open up new options for customers who want to travel beyond the Hokkaido region for both business and leisure.
“In the past two years we’ve expanded our network by adding two new destinations in Japan to meet this growing demand: a year-round service to Osaka, and now seasonal services to Sapporo. We’ll continue to look for opportunities to meet customer demand.”
The Qantas Group operates the largest Australia-Japan network and through Jetstar Japan, the Group also operates the largest low-cost domestic network across Japan.
The new Sapporo service adds to Qantas’ flights from Sydney to Tokyo (Haneda) and Osaka, Melbourne-Tokyo (Narita) and Brisbane-Tokyo (Narita) and Jetstar’s flights from Cairns to Tokyo (Narita) and Osaka, and Gold Coast to Tokyo (Narita).
