Qantas CEO Alan Joyce announces direct Sydney to New York service scrapped

Qantas is scrapping its Sydney to New York route via LAX and replacing it with a direct flight from Auckland to the Big Apple, insisting it’s in Aussie travellers’ best interests.  

The Los Angeles stopover has long been fraught with issues as passengers are forced to pick up their luggage and move through customs checks following their 14-hour journey, before re-boarding a connecting flight to New York.

The national carrier believes starting in New Zealand, skipping the frantic west coast airport and flying direct to New York on the Flying Kangaroo’s 787 Dreamliner fleet, will make the trip easier.

The Los Angeles stopover has long been fraught with delays as passengers are forced to pick up their luggage and move through customs checks following their 14-hour journey, before re-boarding a connecting flight to New York 

‘Los Angeles had a lot of issues with connectivity — you had to pick up your bag, go through customs and immigration and had to check in again for the Qantas flight that went to New York,’ Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said before boarding the inaugural flight. 

The Sydney to New York route was dumped three years ago in the midst of the pandemic with the new route launching on Wednesday.

This now puts Qantas in direct competition with code-sharing ally Air New Zealand.

‘We’ve always called Air New Zealand our frenemy,’ departing chief executive Alan Joyce told Radio NZ.

‘We’re friends on a lot of things … we’re going to be big commercial competitors on this route.’

Both airlines are operating Boeing 787 Dreamliners on the route.

The flight is the fifth-longest in the world, confirming Qantas as a long-haul specialist, operating three of those routes.

The route launch also comes as Qantas steps up its trans-Tasman game dramatically, opening more routes and increasing frequency to overtake Air New Zealand on most routes.

Come October, Qantas will also run four return flights a week from Auckland to NYC compared with Air NZ’s three, outstripping the Kiwi carrier on its flagship route.

The revamped route means Qantas now has three of the top five longest flights in the world alongside Perth to London and Dallas to Melbourne 

The flight route will start three days per week before increasing to four in October

‘This will be a lot smoother for passengers coming from Australia. We have 11 flights a day from Australia into Auckland. It will connect with this service,’ Mr Joyce told Nine.

Australian travellers stay ‘airside’ through the journey, with bags checked all the way through.

The trip from Auckland to New York’s JFK airport is 14,205km, and will take more than 16 hours.

After years of operations marred by pandemic restrictions, Qantas says it is at roughly 85 per cent of its pre-COVID patronage, which it hopes to emulate by March next year.