Qantas Increases Air Freight Capacity

Qantas today announced it had increased air freight capacity across Australia with an extra 16 sectors per night through its partner company Australian Air Express (AaE).

Qantas Group General Manager Freight, Peter Frampton, said additional aircraft and extra sectors had been operating on freight routes since Monday.

"Qantas is aware of the impact of the Ansett situation and has stepped in quickly to fill the gaps with its expanded network and capacity," Mr Frampton said.

"The increased network will allow Qantas, with its partner company Australian Air Express, to provide significant capacity to support the needs of their customers and the major express companies throughout Australia.

"AaE has added a 727, two Hawker Siddeley 748's and three Metro Liner freighters to the fleet and capacity will be further increased in the coming days," he said. "AaE also has access to the greatly increased domestic capacity on Qantas passenger aircraft.

"On critical sectors from the East Coast into Perth, Qantas is now operating 747 passenger aircraft on key flights which provide up to 10 tonnes each of additional international freight capacity each night."

Mr Frampton said the 727 freighter was initially being deployed along the East Coast from Melbourne to Cairns via Brisbane and Townsville.

"The 748 freighters are deployed on the Sydney-Adelaide-Sydney sectors and the Sydney-Brisbane-Sydney sectors.

"The Metro Liners are servicing the smaller ports in North Queensland, as well as linking Melbourne and Canberra.

"AaE are also operating some one-off additional sectors to clear any backlogs that may have occurred such as Melbourne-Launceston-Melbourne," he said.

Neither Qantas nor AaE has increased any freight prices, either in the international or domestic markets, as a result of the current situation.