For far too long, nonstop airline connections between Australia and India were scarce, and the market was underserved. However, since the arrival of Air India and the launch of Qantas routes to Delhi and Bengaluru, demand has steadily grown, and more capacity has been added, including more codeshare operations announced this week.
Australia’s national airline, Qantas, currently operates nonstop services from Melbourne to Delhi and Sydney to Bengaluru. In August 2022, Qantas launched the first phase of its codeshare partnership with India’s largest domestic carrier, IndiGo, giving passengers seamless access to 13 destinations in India.
Photo: Paulose NK | Shutterstock
The IndiGo partnership has proven so successful that in January 2023, another eight destinations were added, giving Qantas passengers more than 250 new flights available for booking. This week, the partnership expanded further when Qantas announced a new codeshare deal so customers can seamlessly connect from its flights in Singapore to IndiGo’s services to Delhi and Mumbai.
Singapore is a major hub for Qantas as the airline operates nonstop flights from Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Brisbane to Singapore Changi Airport (SIN). It is also a transit point for the flagship QF1 Airbus A380 service between Sydney and London Heathrow Airport (LHR).
Photo: Qantas
Qantas passengers can also build overnight stopovers into their travel in Singapore before connecting to Mumbai and Delhi. Qantas International CEO Cam Wallace said the partnership with IndiGo has gone from strength to strength since its launch in 2022.
“We’re excited to be growing our partnership further, offering our customers more choice and convenience when flying between Australia and India. We expect the new codeshare flights through Singapore will be popular with Qantas customers in Brisbane and Perth, who now have the option of a more direct route to India.”
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The IndiGo codeshare expansion follows last week’s announcement of changes to the Qantas Asian network. With demand not reaching expected levels, the route between Sydney and Shanghai will be suspended from July 28, while a new service between Brisbane Airport (BNE) and Ninoy Aquino International Airport (MNL) in the Philippines will start on October 28, 2024.
Photo: Brisbane Airport Corporation
Brisbane customers will have more options to Singapore Changi as Qantas increases frequency from seven to nine weekly flights from October 27, 2024. The service between Sydney and Singapore will also increase from 14 to 17 return flights weekly from December 11, 2024.
Further, demonstrating the strength of the Indian market, Qantas is increasing the Sydney to Bengaluru service from five per week to daily during the peak Christmas and New Year travel period. The extra flights will operate between mid-December 2024 and late March 2025, adding more than 12,000 seats to the route in those four months.
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The Airbus A330 is the aircraft of choice for Qantas flights to Asia, including Singapore, Delhi and Bengaluru, and it will be used on the new Brisbane to Manila route. According to Flightradar24, Qantas has 10 Airbus A330-300s and 16 A330-200 passenger aircraft, plus two A330-200(P2F) freighters.
The current IndiGo codeshare deal includes seamless connections to 21 Indian destinations, some of which include Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Chennai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Goa, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Pune, Nagpur, Jaipur and Chandigarh.
What do you think about codeshares? Let us know in the comments.
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