Qantas have announced plans to launch their first-ever direct flights from Melbourne to San Francisco.
The new route – operated by the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner – will be on sale from early 2018 with flights expected to start by the end of next year.
Qantas say they are meeting consumer demand for the two Californian cities, and that the Dreamliner will fly to Los Angeles some days of the week and San Francisco on others.
Qantas revealed 787 Dreamliner (pictured) plans to fly direct from Melbourne to San Francisco
Victorians will be able to fly to San Francisco (pictured) by the end of next year
‘A significant number of our Melbourne passengers flying to Los Angeles already connect on to San Francisco,’ said Qantas International CEO Alison Webster.
‘We also see strong demand from San Francisco, both from a tourism perspective and because of the business links between Melbourne and Silicon Valley,’ she added.
The first 787-operated Melbourne-LAX flight, QF95, departed Melbourne at 14:25 on Friday.
The Dreamliner has 236 seats across three cabins including the acclaimed Business Suite – nicknamed ‘mini First Class’ by some frequent flyers.
Qantas made the announcement as it unveiled the name of its latest Dreamliner – ‘Waltzing Matilda’.
Often called Australia’s unofficial national anthem, Waltzing Matilda was one of the 45,000 suggestions received from the public to name the airline’s new fleet of eight Dreamliners.
‘Banjo Paterson is said to have written Waltzing Matilda while working on a cattle station in the outback Queensland town of Winton, which was also the birth place of Qantas 25 years later,’ Ms Webster said.
Ms Webster was joined by the Victorian Minister for Tourism and Major Events, John Eren, at Qantas’ engineering base in Melbourne to mark the naming and announce the new route.
Earlier this year Qantas revealed all eight Dreamliner names; Great Southern Land, Waltzing Matilda, Great Barrier Reef, Skippy, Boomerang, Quokka, Uluru and Dreamtime.
The first 787-operated Melbourne-LAX flight departed Melbourne airport (pictured) on Friday