Qantas’ current one-stop Sydney-London flights will skip Dubai and instead transit in Singapore from next spring.
It marks a return to Singapore Changi Airport as its biggest non-Australian hub after using Dubai for the past five years.
The change begins from March 25, 2018, when Qantas reroutes its daily Sydney-London A380 flights.
Qantas said it is also increasing Melbourne-Singapore capacity by upgrading one flight to an A380 service.
"This development secures Changi Airport as the most connected international airport to Australia, both in terms of the number of city links and seats, and strengthens our position as the region’s leading air hub," said Changi Airport Group’s managing director for air hub development, Lim Ching Kiat.
The move is primarily to boost demand for travel to Asia.
"What we’ve been looking at for some time is how we continue to grow the Asian market" said CEO Alan Joyce.
Despite shifting to Singapore, Qantas is still bullish on Dubai.
Qantas and Dubai based Emirates plan to renew their partnership which began in 2013.
It will apply for an extension with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, saying the partnership offers ‘huge benefits to a lot of customers, it’s opened up a lot more options for customers and it continues to do so.’
"Emirates altogether get 1.6 million passengers from Qantas on their entire network. They know that’s really valuable, that brings them a lot of revenue," Joyce said.
