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Qantas will relaunch a seasonal service direct from Sydney to the Japanese ski resort of Sapporo in December.
The route, last attempted months before COVID-19 began, will be the only direct flight between the two destinations and cut out an often-lengthy layover that can involve changing airports in Tokyo.
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The new service will be Qantas’ fourth into Japan, with other routes including double daily flights from Sydney to Tokyo Haneda and daily services from Melbourne and Brisbane to Tokyo Narita.
“These new flights will save passengers hours of travel time compared to connecting in Tokyo or other cities and give them more time to enjoy on the slopes,” Qantas International CEO Cam Wallace said.
“Australians’ love affair with Japan is stronger than ever, so it is fitting that Sapporo will also mark the 100th destination in the Qantas network, following the great new destinations we added last year like Paris, Palau and Port Vila.
“We last flew to Sapporo in early 2020 and had extremely positive feedback from customers, so we’re looking forward to operating this route again.”
Qantas last tried to launch the service in December 2019, but it never returned after the end of the pandemic lockdowns in 2021. Before that, the Flying Kangaroo last flew to Sapporo in 1997.
The new flights will run from 15 December 2025 to 28 March 2026 using the airline’s fleet of Airbus A330-200s, which will offer more than 20,000 seats on the route across the northern ski season.
Qantas said QF107 would depart on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, and flight time would be approximately 10 hours and 50 minutes.
The news significantly follows the Flying Kangaroo announcing it would launch an extra daily flight into the Japanese capital made available by the withdrawal of Virgin Australia.
The airline plans to operate a third daily A330-300 service from 30 March 2025, allowing it to switch its daily Brisbane and Melbourne flights – currently operating to Narita – to Haneda. It currently flies twice daily to Haneda from Sydney.
Following the switch, Qantas will fly daily to Haneda from all three major east coast airports, as well as to Narita from Sydney. No other airlines applied for the additional Haneda capacity.
Virgin announced earlier this year that it would end its low-performing Cairns–Haneda service on 24 February 2025 despite it only having launched in June 2023, with its 737 MAX 8s being reassigned to domestic routes.
The route was the second-worst for capacity in Virgin’s international network; unlike most of the airline’s international services, the route relied heavily on inbound travel, which turned out below its forecasts and was weighed down by a weak yen against the Australian dollar.
