When talk comes up of long-haul flights, many who live in the U.S. will invariably think of Australia.
After the country's flagship carrier Qantas Airways (QUBSF) launches the new route in 2025, the 20-hour and 10,576-mile flight between the two cities will push out Singapore Airlines (SINGF) ' New York route for the title of the longest running flight in the world.
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But at present, those traveling between the U.S. and Australia often need to go through either San Francisco and Los Angeles. A number of airlines fly from these cities not just to Sydney but other Australian locations such as Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane.
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Delta to run 17 weekly flights between the U.S. and Australia (this is the newest one)
Delta Air Lines (DAL) on Feb. 23 said that it would start running a Brisbane-L.A. flight starting on Dec. 4. Spanning 7,161 miles and taking just over 14 hours, the new route will run three times a week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday until March 28, 2025, to meet the more popular travel period during the American winter and Australian summer.
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“With this addition of Brisbane, Delta’s upcoming winter schedule will offer our customers up to 17 weekly flights between the U.S. and Australia," Delta's SVP of Network Planning Joe Esposito said in a statement. "This marks our most extensive schedule to the South Pacific to date, and as we build our presence in the region, we know our customers will enjoy the enhanced experience."
Brisbane is the capital of the Australian state of Queensland and is often passed through by tourists on the way to beaches along Australia's Noosa and Gold Coast.
After Sydney, Brisbane will be the second Australian city from which Delta flies while competitors such as United Airlines (UAL) and American (AAL) also fly there alongside other cities such as Melbourne and Perth.
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Currently offering more flights to Australia than any other U.S. airline, United has been running a flight between San Francisco and Brisbane since 2022 and L.A. and Brisbane since 2023. American Airlines, meanwhile, announced a new flight to the city from the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport for one of the few flights to Australia from a U.S. city away from the West Coast.
On top of the flights from the U.S.-based airlines, Qantas runs the largest number of routes between different American and Australian cities.
All of these routes and increasing competition between airlines for the South Pacific travel market speak to both the higher numbers of travelers going between the two countries after Australia definitively opened up to visitors following the pandemic, as well as the fact that many are looking to go directly from their home city instead of having to transit through Sydney to get to anywhere else in Australia.
"Conversely, this route opens doors for more Australian travelers to indulge in the glamorous allure of Hollywood in Los Angeles or to take advantage of more than 40 convenient one-stop connections to popular U.S. cities," Delta said of its new Brisbane flight.
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