ANA have started their direct flights from Perth to Tokyo. I thought the general rule was that if a foreign airline was granted landing rights in Australia, a local airline would be allowed the same rights the other way.
Does anyone know if Qantas or Virgin have plans to fly this route themselves?
I don’t think that landing rights was ever a problem if Qantas or Virgin was to fly to Narita. We saw the Haneda slots given out just before COVID which Qantas took to increase capacity of the east coast routes and shift away from Narita without increasing too much capacity - that indicates to me, even during the most optimistic era back then, that the airline has no interest in increasing Japanese capacity any time soon (particularly considering the aircraft constraints at the moment). Virgin is even less likely given their longest range aircraft wouldn’t be able to make the journey.
If you think about Qantas’ strategy in Perth, it basically is no strategy. The spat between them and Perth airport is still ongoing, and many routes have come as a casualty of that. Until that is resolved, and until they have spare aircraft, Sydney Airlines is a pretty valid nickname for the airline.
I forgot about the airport problem. I know that Qantas seems quite happy to live in its own private airport for now (which is comfy, for sure). But I now see that this allows them to downplay Perth as a departure point for the foreseeable future.