|
The first of three new weekly non-stop Qantas services from Perth to Hong
Kong took off Monday, marking the 55th anniversary of Qantas flights between Australia and Hong Kong.
Regional General Manager Australia Sales Peter Collins said the addition of
these services meant that Qantas was now flying non-stop more frequently
from Australia to Hong Kong than it did before the outbreak of SARS a year
ago.
"These new flights bring to 24 the number of weekly international services
from Perth and will provide a significant boost to West Australian tourism,"
Mr Collins said.
"Qantas now operates direct services from Perth to five Asian destinations -
Hong Kong, Bali, Jakarta, Tokyo and Singapore - with connections to London, Paris and Frankfurt."
Mr Collins said the Perth-Hong Kong services would initially be operated by
two-class Boeing 767-300s, with Airbus A330-300s commencing on the route later this year.
"The A330-300 services will provide an additional 204 seats into Perth each
week including the state-of-the-art, award-winning Skybed in Business Class.
"Qantas is also expanding direct domestic flights to and from Western
Australia with the recent addition of daily Canberra-Perth services and new
Cairns-Perth and Sydney-Broome services commencing this week.
"We opened a flight attendants' base in Perth in January 2001 and the
number of crew at the base has now grown to 270."
The new flights to Hong Kong will depart from Perth on Mondays,
Wednesdays and Fridays at 9.15am arriving in Hong Kong at 5.15pm local time. |
