Qantas has announced the addition of Rome to its network. The carrier will launch nonstop flights to the city in mid-2022 and will mark its return to Rome after 18 years.
Flights to Rome
Starting 22nd June 2022 and running through 6th October 2022, Qantas will operate 3-weekly flights between Sydney International Airport and Rome’s Fiumicino International Airport via Perth International Airport. The flights will run with the following schedule:
- Sydney-Perth
- Departure time: 17:55
- Arrival time: 20:50
- Flight time: 4 hours and 55 minutes
- Flight number: QF5
- Frequency: Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays
- Perth-Rome
- Departure time: 20:20
- Arrival time: 08:45 (the next day)
- Flight time: 16 hours and 25 minutes
- Flight number: QF5
- Frequency: Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays
- Rome-Perth
- Departure time: 10:50
- Arrival time: 08:35 (the next day)
- Flight time: 15 hours and 45 minutes
- Flight number: QF6
- Frequency: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays
- Perth-Sydney
- Departure time: 10:05
- Arrival time: 16:05 (the next day)
- Flight time: 4 hours
- Flight number: QF6
- Frequency: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays
These flights will be operated by Boeing B787 Dreamliner featuring 42 lie-flat Business Class seats, 28 Premium Economy Class seats and 166 standard Economy Class seats.
Alan Joyce, CEO, Qantas Group said strong travel demand since borders re-opened had given the Flying Kangaroo confidence to explore new destinations. He added:
We’ve seen amazing demand on our direct service from Perth to London and on our new services to Delhi from Melbourne and Sydney. These are exciting destinations and there’s strong evidence the pandemic is making non-stop flights between Australia and the rest of world even more desirable as we learn to live with the virus and its variants. Italy is the largest market for us in continental Europe for people visiting family and friends from Australia and we think customers will love flying direct to one of the world’s great cities to spend time with loved ones or enjoy Italy. After the restrictions of the past few years, it’s the ideal time to reinvigorate our international network and we’ll continue to look for new opportunities.
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Qantas says that it is launching this route to meet demand over the European holiday peak season. The new flight will cut more than 3 hours off the current fastest travel time to Rome.
Passengers will be able to combine Qantas’ Rome flights with its double-daily direct flights between Australia and London (while Qantas operated a daily flight to London presently, double-daily flights are slated to be running by mid-2022), meaning they will be able to fly in and out of different cities on one return ticket through to October 2022. The new Rome service will also give passengers another option for reaching onward destinations across the Mediterranean and Southern Europe through Qantas’ network of partners. The Sydney-based will offer connections to 16 destinations in Europe including Athens, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Nice, Madrid and Paris and 15 destinations within Italy including Milan and Venice.
The new route is expected to entice more visitors to Western Australia and Qantas will partner with Tourism Western Australia to boost inbound tourism from Europe into Perth and regional WA, as well as promote Perth as an ideal stopover for Australians travelling to Europe from the east coast.
Mr. Joyce added:
Australia’s global reputation as a friendly, safe and unique destination is already an enormous tourism drawcard and adding Rome to the Qantas network means visitors will experience the Spirit of Australia before they even arrive.
Qantas recently started new flights from Sydney to Delhi and Melbourne to Delhi and re-started a number of existing routes from Sydney and Melbourne to destinations including Los Angeles, London and Singapore.
The new flights to Rome are now bookable with fares starting from $1785 return. Qantas will operate two Points Planes (bookable until 21st December 2021) for Frequent Flyers with every seat in every cabin available to book as a reward seat on the inaugural flight to Rome on 22nd June 2022 and on the first flight departing Rome on 23rd June 2022.
Return to Rome after 18 years
The launch of flights to Rome will mark Qantas’ return to the Italian capital after 18 years. The airline last flew to Rome in 2003. Qantas operated flights to Rome continuously between 1948 and 2003.
The cessation of flights to Rome broadly coincided with Qantas ending flights to several European destinations. Qantas was not the only airline flying between Australia and Italy in the last century. Alitalia also once flew between Australia and Italy but ended regular flights in 1998. S
Since then, passengers travelling between Australia and Italy have had to connect in cities like Singapore and Dubai. This is despite significant numbers of travellers flying between the two countries. However, with Qantas launching flights to Rome, travellers will finally be able to travel nonstop between the two countries.
Meanwhile, Qantas recently announced new nonstop flights between Adelaide and Newcastle in March 2022.
Featured image by Qantas
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