Qantas to start flights from Darwin to Singapore

[CaptJCool]

But I wonder who would do the retimed DRW flight. Current QF48 arrives around midnight in Darwin. The retimed version gets into Darwin at 0430am. Not really a great time given that the flight is only 4+ hours. If you live in DRW, maybe but for connections onwards... not my choice.

When I was booking DCS runs SIN - SYD, this retimed flight always came up, sometimes about 1/2 price of SIN - SYD but looking at timings I had to say no.

I guess QF is struggling to fill the return flight. I was on QF47 twice last year (Mondays) and it had a solid loading.

Originally it was timed at 4.30am arrival to connect onto the early morning flights

It switched months out from 1 December to midnight arrival with Darwin airport QF club closing after last late flight HR of the night. Reopening at 5.30.
Checkin was firmly shut. For the duration
There are luggage lockers on the concourse which we utilised.
And slept upstairs for 3-4 hours on the couches

 

[Laptop Jockey]

Because DRW is such a small outbound market, and expensive, especially during the dry, the SIN-DRW and DRW-SIN origin/destination markets I imagine would be fairly small. What SQ can offer that QF can't is the world - Europe, North America, East Asia, SE Asia, India, South Africa. I can see why QF might struggle with limited feed to/from "the world" , especially now that 3K is gone. IIRC, it doesn't even line up with QF2.

That's the kicker, and why Royal Brunei was such an important link to the world back in the day connecting to Dubai, Frankfurt, London and the main Asian capitals directly, and often for not much more than the cost of a domestic flight to SYD/BNE/MEL. Then the various Asian LCCs came on and off in the 2010s onwards.
Qantas has always been outright predatory on the DRW international market, entering a known thin market, driving out international competitors, then cancelling the route and forcing NT residents and international visitors onto QF's wildly overpriced and highly profitable domestic flights to Darwin.

Given the isolation of the top end and the role of air travel as an essential service, there really does need to be government regulation on seat/mile pricing on designated essential/strategic routes.

 

[rigram]

That's the kicker, and why Royal Brunei was such an important link to the world back in the day connecting to Dubai, Frankfurt, London and the main Asian capitals directly, and often for not much more than the cost of a domestic flight to SYD/BNE/MEL. Then the various Asian LCCs came on and off in the 2010s onwards.
Qantas has always been outright predatory on the DRW international market, entering a known thin market, driving out international competitors, then cancelling the route and forcing NT residents and international visitors onto QF's wildly overpriced and highly profitable domestic flights to Darwin.

Given the isolation of the top end and the role of air travel as an essential service, there really does need to be government regulation on seat/mile pricing on designated essential/strategic routes.

Or... 5th freedom rights for international airlines to carry DRW pax on domestic routes

 

[markis10]

Meanwhile

China Southern Expands Qantas Domestic Codeshare in NS26 — AeroRoutes

Published at 0300PDT / 1000GMT 09MAR26 China Southern at the launch of Northern summer 2026 season expands codeshare partnership with Qantas, covering additional routes via Darwin. Following codeshare routes to commence on 29MAR26. China Southern operated by Qantas Brisbane – Darwin Sydney – Da

www.aeroroutes.com

 

[Warragul]

Or... 5th freedom rights for international airlines to carry DRW pax on domestic routes

8th not 5th
https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/public-registers/documents/D04+16314.pdf

 

[rigram]

8th not 5th
https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/public-registers/documents/D04+16314.pdf

Stand corrected - YES, that's what we need!!

 

[Laptop Jockey]

Or... 5th freedom rights for international airlines to carry DRW pax on domestic routes

While it would certainly be a positive, and not going to make the situation any worse, I don't really see it have any noticeable impact beyond maybe one or two airlines sporadically trying it for six months then cancelling it.
The international stopover itself is generally unpopular with passengers especially in an airport with such limited facilities as Darwin, and generally unnecessary for most of the big connectors in ME and asia. I doubt they would bother.
Most Asian LCCs operate a big twin for the longer routes to SYD/MEL/BNE these days, so aren't constrained by single fleet-type 737/A320 range issues that Darwin would be an elegant solution to (like Tiger-SG and Jetstar both tried fifteen years ago). The possibility of Air Asia or Scoot giving it a crack might happen, something like KL-DRW-BNE/ADL or something similar maybe. I would actually guess something more oddball like a Filipino carrier operating Manila-Darwin and connecting to Adelaide and Perth would actually be more likely to succeed, but I doubt frequency would be high enough to make much difference. And Qantas will just do what they always do, flood capacity, reduce fares down to about $700 for a few months, crush the competition and then jack them up again to $900+. At the end of the day QF know the DRW domestic routes are a golden goose with a captive market that has no alternatives but to fly, and fly with them or their one struggling competitor. Anecdotally, I can't remember ever being on a flight that wasn't full from SYD/MEL/BNE. The only time I've ever seen vacant seats were the E190 flights from CBR, and even then there weren't many. The load factors and cost per seat/mile would have to be done of the highest in the entire QF route network. In August last year they were charging $2000 ONE WAY ECONOMY, and that was 1-2 weeks out, not last minute. There's no justification for that.

 

[CaptJCool]

Darwin and Canberra hold the highest income in the country records

I’m gathering plenty of passengers are from the government and government funded sectors eg students travelling to Universities for study on the East coast
This money boosts baseline fares

GrantsNT

GrantsNT is the online grant management system for the Northern Territory Government. You can use GrantsNT to search for previous, current and expired Grants from the Northern Territory Government. You can use GrantsNT to manage your reporting of performance and payment for approved grants. You...

grantsnt.nt.gov.au

https://education.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/1582795/student-assistance-schemes-policy-application-and-claim-procedures.pdf

 

[malwcal]

QF bleeds us dry on domestic flights, and then expect us to fly from Darwin to Europe via (eg) Sydney. It's a bit better if you can connect via Perth, but for example, last year most days of the week the flights didn't connect. So we flew FCO-PER-SYD-DRW, because PER-DRW left 10 minutes too late for MCT. Flying via SYD added 12 hours(!) to the total flying time for that one.

I was hopeful direct DRW-SIN flights could help but alas, if they don't connect how can they expect anyone to use them.

 

[dajop]

I'd be taking that JQ flight to DPS and buying an inexpensive business class fare from there to Europe. Would be cheaper than getting to SYD and back in business class, and even possibly Y at certain times of the year. Well almost.

 

[rigram]

I'd be taking that JQ flight to DPS and buying an inexpensive business class fare from there to Europe. Would be cheaper than getting to SYD and back in business class, and even possibly Y at certain times of the year. Well almost.

Another "affordable" option for J class to Europe is originating in CGK, both Jakarta & Bali generally have good fares/availability - I've been espousing this to friends in DRW, who always thank me...

 

[SJF211]

I’m gathering plenty of passengers are from the government and government funded sectors eg students travelling to Universities for study on the East coast
This money boosts baseline fares

I think I and most of my friends got offered ~$2,500 when I was due to start university in 2022 but ended up delaying my start so wasn’t eligible. Most years I spent around 10-15k going to visit my family 8 times a year while I was at uni between ADL-DRW and more now that I don’t fly Y to DRW. All however from the bank of mum and dad .

 

[Laptop Jockey]

Darwin and Canberra hold the highest income in the country records

I’m gathering plenty of passengers are from the government and government funded sectors eg students travelling to Universities for study on the East coast
This money boosts baseline fares

GrantsNT

GrantsNT is the online grant management system for the Northern Territory Government. You can use GrantsNT to search for previous, current and expired Grants from the Northern Territory Government. You can use GrantsNT to manage your reporting of performance and payment for approved grants. You...

grantsnt.nt.gov.au

https://education.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/1582795/student-assistance-schemes-policy-application-and-claim-procedures.pdf

I would say there's arguably more cash-paying customers ex-DRW than the average golden triangle flights TBH. Most people in Darwin aren't from Darwin and have family down south, there is also a high proportion of medical travel to Southern cities.
Also Those $2000 Y tickets I mentioned weren't CBR-DRW direct, those were MEL-DRW.
Anecdotally again, the majority of passengers on DRW flights certainly don't look like business or government flyers (there's always about a half dozen ADF pers, but that's still a drop in the bucket), and I've never seen the QC/J lounge at anywhere near capacity either. The only time I've ever actually seen empty J seats ex-DRW was on the direct DRW-CBR flights ironically.
But regardless, it's still no excuse for price gouging a captive market, and in no way justifies blatantly anti-competitive behaviour that can be observed in historical data going back over over two decades.

 

[Ansett Nostalgic]

DRW connectivity into KUL or HKG would make more sense from a oneworld perspective.