Qantas Freight will add new frequencies to Asia and New Zealand following the addition of an extra Airbus A321 converted freighter. The Sydney-headquartered airline said the delivery of the A321 freighter will allow it to capitalise on rising demand out of Asia.
With this in mind, the carrier plans to add a new Perth-Hong Kong-Sydney loop to two services flying directly between Hong Kong and Sydney using its Airbus 61 tonne capacity A330-200Fs.
The flights from Sydney to Hong Kong will operate from Australia on Wednesdays and Sundays, while the Perth route will operate on Fridays.
Meanwhile, the carrier will increase its flights operating from Sydney to Christchurch via Auckland from late August from four to five times per week.
Four of these services are operated by A321Fs while the fifth is operated using an A330-200F to cater for larger cargo shipments.
Then from September 10, one of these flights will also include a stop at Melbourne “to open up capacity from southern states into New Zealand”.
“Adding the A321P2F to the [New Zealand] route allows Qantas Freight to expand the A330 freighter network north to Asia,” the carrier explained.
Igor Kwiatkowski, executive manager Qantas Freight, said: “Demand for freight services is rising, particularly in Asia, and we’re looking at several options to extend the A330 freighter schedule to more places in Asia as we want to meet that need now and into the future. “These changes give freight customers in Australia, New Zealand and Asia more opportunity through greater frequency of services and the enhanced capacity of our Airbus fleet.”
Qantas Freight currently operates a fleet of two A330-200Fs, six A321Fs and three British Aerospace BAe 146s.
In August 2022, Qantas Freight said it would increase its domestic fleet with six Airbus A321P2Fs to meet growing e-commerce demand from its customers.
It took delivery of its second A330-200P2F (passenger to freighter) aircraft from EFW in December last year.
The carrier has been retiring its fleet of older 737-400 freighters, with the last of the model leaving in August. It also waved goodbye to its last 767 freighter earlier this year.
