Qatar Airways’ Bizarre Daily Melbourne-Adelaide Flight

Since the beginning of October, Qatar Airways has been running a Boeing 777 every day from Melbourne to Adelaide and back without passengers.

The Oneworld member has now started selling seats on these flights, but they are only available to passengers continuing to or from Doha on the same aircraft – and the timings are truly awful!

Qatar Airways’ second-daily Melbourne flight

Last month, Qatar Airways added a second daily flight between Doha and Melbourne using a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. This flight was originally supposed to continue onwards to Canberra, with a full routing of Doha-Melbourne-Canberra-Melbourne-Doha.

As a foreign airline, Qatar Airways is not allowed to sell domestic itineraries within Australia. So the only passengers able to travel on the Melbourne-Canberra portions of this flight would be those travelling all the way to/from Doha on the same aircraft.

A Doha-Melbourne-Canberra service may seem like a strange choice, but there was a logical reason for it.

Under the current Air Services Agreement between Australia and Qatar, Qatari airlines can only operate up to 28 weekly flights from Doha to Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Qatar Airways already has daily flights to all four cities, so it’s not allowed to add any more flights to those airports. But there’s a loophole that allows Qatar Airways to add unlimited flights to secondary Australian cities via a major airport. Hence, the Doha-Melbourne-Canberra service was born.

At the last minute, Qatar Airways postponed the start of the Melbourne-Canberra portion of the new route. This was initially delayed until December 2022, but has now been pushed back until at least the end of March 2023. (Doha-Canberra flights are still loaded in the GDS for travel beyond next March, but seats are not currently available for sale.)

Qatar Airways at the time blamed “operational issues” for the delay in launching flights to Canberra. The Canberra Times reported that Qatar Airways could not reach an agreement with the ground handling company at Canberra Airport.

This flight now continues to Adelaide

Under the current Air Services Agreement, Qatar Airways can’t just launch a second daily flight to Melbourne without removing one of its other daily flights to Sydney, Brisbane or Perth. To get around this, without flying to Canberra, it has been flying a Boeing 777 every day from Melbourne to Adelaide and back with no passengers (until now).

Presumably, these aircraft would at least have some freight on board. It still seems incredibly wasteful.

A new Air Services Agreement between Australia and Qatar is currently being negotiated. The Qatari government is reportedly requesting more weekly frequencies to Australia’s four major airports, which would allow it to operate the second daily Melbourne flight without having to then send the plane onwards to another Australian city. But Qantas is trying to block this.

Qatar Airways is now selling Doha-Melbourne-Adelaide tickets

Since flight QR988 is continuing onwards from Melbourne to Adelaide anyway, after arriving from Doha, Qatar Airways has now begun offering seats for sale all the way through from Doha to Adelaide on this flight.

This service is being offered in addition to the existing non-stop Doha-Adelaide flight (which continues to Auckland). However, the schedule seems almost sadistic with an overnight transit stop in Melbourne of 11 hours and 25 minutes!

On the return leg, seats on QR989 from Adelaide to Doha via Melbourne are also now being offered for sale. Based on the schedule available this month, this could be an attractive option for some people travelling from Adelaide to Doha as there’s only a short transit stop in Melbourne and it’s a daytime flight the whole way to Doha.

This is the current schedule operating during November 2022:

• QR988 Doha 01:45 – Melbourne 23:20
• QR988 Melbourne 10:45 – Adelaide 11:40 (next day)
• QR989 Adelaide 12:55 – Melbourne 14:45
• QR989 Melbourne 16:15 – Doha 22:40

From December 2022 until late March 2023, the overnight transit time when travelling from Doha to Adelaide via Melbourne will reduce from over 11 hours to just under seven hours. But the Melbourne Airport transit time in the other direction will significantly increase to almost five hours.

That’s not so bad if you have access to the Qantas First Lounge through Oneworld Emerald status… but pretty awful for everyone else!

This is the full schedule from December 2022:

• QR988 Doha 01:45 – Melbourne 23:20
• QR988 Melbourne 06:00 – Adelaide 06:55 (next day)
• QR989 Adelaide 09:40 – Melbourne 11:30
• QR989 Melbourne 16:15 – Doha 22:40

Unfortunately for passengers booked on QR988 between Doha and Adelaide via Melbourne, it’s also not possible to leave the international transit area in the airport.

Presumably, Qatar Airways is not planning on actually selling many seats between Melbourne and Adelaide. This flight exists only as a workaround for the airline to get a valuable second-daily Doha-Melbourne service. The moment the Air Services Agreement changes, you can bet that the Melbourne-Adelaide sector of QR988/989 will be dropped.

Until then, these bizarre flights are currently operating every day and seats are available for sale! Sadly, there will probably be a few unsuspecting souls who accidentally book this flight to or from Adelaide without realising they might get stuck in transit in Melbourne Airport along the way for more than 11 hours…

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.