At the dawn of our new era of quarantine and isolation-free trans-Tasman travel, Qantas services between New Zealand and Australia are attracting heavy bookings.

Thousands of Australians jetted off to New Zealand for the holidays with Qantas, as a new era of quarantine free trans-Tasman flights dawned. QF157 from Melbourne to Auckland was the first flight from Australia to touch down, arriving just before 1.00am, followed by QF139 from Sydney to Christchurch set to land at 12.35pm.

All five Qantas flights arriving in New Zealand today were completely full, as Kiwis and Aussies are eager to reunite with families and friends for the holidays.

From today (April 13), Qantas will fly daily from Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney to Auckland and Sydney to Christchurch four times per week on a mix of its Boeing 737s and wide-body Airbus A330 aircraft, which offer Business Suites with lie flat beds.

Qantas has seen strong pent-up demand for flights between Australia and New Zealand, with flights over the Easter holidays selling out within the week following the New Zealand Government announcing quarantine free travel would resume for fully vaccinated Australians.

Qantas will initially operate 25 return flights per week between Australia and New Zealand and from 23 May, will fly to all pre-COVID destinations and ramp up to 71 return flights per week. Services to Wellington from Sydney and Melbourne will resume, as will Sydney to Queenstown and Melbourne and Brisbane – Christchurch.

In time for the peak ski season, Qantas will add flights from Brisbane and Melbourne to Queenstown starting 18 June. Customers are using Qantas’ trans-Tasman network to reconnect New Zealand to the world, with Tasman passengers this week travelling to/from Bali, Bangkok, Dallas-Fort Worth, Delhi, Honolulu, Johannesburg, London, Manila, Los Angeles, Singapore and Vancouver.

Every Qantas trans-Tasman flight in the month of May is also a ‘Points Plane’, meaning Frequent Flyers can use Qantas Points to book any seat as a Classic Reward Seat. “Our customers are keen to return to New Zealand for their holidays and most of our trans-Tasman services in April are already sold out. Qantas flights between Australia and New Zealand are set to nearly triple in the coming months, which will give local tourism operators and international connectivity a real boost,” a spokesperson for Qantas says. https://www.qantas.co.nz/