June 30, 2001	atimes.com

Oceania Qantas changes Asian priorities SYDNEY - Australian airline major Qantas Airways Ltd will cut its direct flights from Adelaide to Singapore in December, saying it is losing too much money on the route. But Singapore Airlines immediately jumped into the void, vowing to increase capacity by 22 percent on the route. Qantas plans to re-route its three remaining services via Darwin, allowing the airline to sell spare seats to domestic travellers. The Australian carrier has also cut its daily Darwin to Singapore service back to three flights per week, but has boosted domestic services between Cairns and Darwin. "The daily services from Cairns and Darwin to Singapore continue to be unprofitable and we need to establish different ways of serving these international markets," Qantas executive general manager Paul Edwards said on Thursday. Edwards said Qantas would, however, increase the number of flights between Queensland and Asia. From October, Qantas will introduce four services to Osaka in Japan from Cairns and will begin two weekly services to Singapore from Townsville. By next year Qantas intends to offer a daily Cairns-Osaka service. Qantas now operates 28 return flights a week between Japan and Australia. "We believe that the new services will boost business and leisure travel between Australia and Japan, one of our most important international markets, and will further grow this market for the Queensland tourism industry," Edwards said. Qantas will continue to codeshare on Japan Airlines flights between Brisbane, Sydney and Osaka. Edwards said the airline would use 767-300 aircraft for the new international flights, and the smaller 737 aircraft on the domestic flights. Singapore Airlines, meanwhile, said it would use the large 777 aircraft to boost capacity on its three Adelaide to Singapore flights. It would then be the only international airline which offers all of its Adelaide to Singapore services as non-stop flights. "The upgrade of aircraft from the A340-300 to the Boeing 777-200 will see an increase in capacity of 58 seats per flight, offering more opportunities for Adelaide travellers to visit Singapore and beyond," Singapore Airlines public relations manager Australia Stephen Forshaw said. (Asia Pulse)

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