Qantas returns to San Francisco
Qantas Ambassador John Travolta and Mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsom will be on hand to welcome the first of Qantas’ B747-400 non-stop flights from Sydney to San Francisco, which is scheduled to arrive in San Francisco at 10.15am on 29 March.
Qantas Chief Financial Officer Peter Gregg said Qantas had had a very strong response to the new services.
“We are initially operating three flights a week, and have plans to develop the route further over time,” he said.
“These new services take the total number of Qantas flights to the USA to 43 a week, which underscores our commitment to serving this very important market.”
Mr Gregg said that as well as being an important international destination in its own right, San Francisco was an attractive stop-over alternative for Australians travelling to other destinations in the USA.
“San Francisco is recognised as one of the most popular leisure destinations in the USA, but is also an important business market,” he said.
Mr Gregg said that San Francisco was also an historically important destination for Qantas.
“San Francisco was the first mainland USA destination ever served by Qantas. We operated flights to San Francisco from 1954 to 1994, and also based our American headquarters in San Francisco before moving to Los Angeles in 1995,” he said.
“The timing of our new Sydney-San Francisco flights allows excellent connections to other major US cities including Dallas, Chicago, Miami and Boston, which are all served by Qantas’ oneworld™ partner, American Airlines.”
Mr Gregg said Qantas’ new services to Vancouver, which were being offered during peak travel seasons from June 2006, would fly via San Francisco.
“This will take the total number of North American destinations served by Qantas to five – Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Vancouver and Honolulu.”
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