New winter schedules offer greater choice of flights to Australia

Alliance partners British Airways and Qantas have further refined their schedules to provide greater choice and ultimate flexibility for customers travelling from the UK to Australia and South East Asia.

The changes will be gradually introduced between the end October and the beginning of December. These refinements build upon the changes already undertaken by the two airlines earlier in the year.

The number of connections from the airlines South East Asia hubs of Singapore and Bangkok to Australia increase by a total of 15 flights per week (an additional four flights a week from Singapore to Brisbane and an additional 4 flights a week from Singapore to Perth). In addition there are major benefits for customers as there will now be a wider choice of travelling times.

In summary, the key benefits are:

· An overall increase of four services a week from Heathrow to Sydney bring the total number of services to 24 a week with a choice of daily morning and evening departures from Heathrow and arrivals into Sydney.
· An additional choice of five evening arrival options per week into Melbourne to add to the current choice of daily morning arrivals
· A greater choice of arrival times into Brisbane with the establishment of evening arrivals in addition to the existing morning arrivals. There are also morning and evening departures from Heathrow.

Flights between Singapore to Brisbane and Perth will be operated by Qantas utilising Boeing 767 aircraft.

In line with their long-standing joint services agreement covering the "Kangaroo" route between UK and Australia, all of these services will be operated with joint BA and QF flight codes.

The airlines will continue to refine there joint schedules and expect to announce further improvement in March 2001.