Qantas banking on fliers to pay $12,000 for 24-hour flights

Qantas banking on fliers to pay $12,000 for 24-hour flights

Aviation















Bloomberg

Wanted: Hundreds of people to sit in a plane for 20 hours. Must be willing to pay lots of money. Claustrophobes needn’t apply.

Conceived prior to the Covid crisis, Qantas Airways Ltd’s plan to operate the world’s longest nonstop commercial flights from southeast Australia to New York and London is being resurrected in a much-changed aviation landscape, with global carriers reeling from the pandemic and people wary about travel.

Qantas, which lost over A$22 billion ($15 billion) in revenue due to virus-related border curbs, is banking on passengers being willing to pay a premium to avoid layovers and get gargantuan journeys over and done with in one go.

But some regular fliers are balking at potentially paying 30% extra for a direct flight compared with a two-leg journey. While fares may differ by the time the flights start, a return nonstop Sydney-New York business class ticket could cost more than A$18,000 — enough to buy a new compact car — based on October flights listed on Kayak for the same route with a stop in Los Angeles.

And not everyone is ready to spend almost an entire day and