Back in June of this year, Qantas announced that they would be expanding their international route network by adding two routes from the Queensland capital of Brisbane. The flying Kangaroo announced that from April 2020, they would launch both Brisbane – San Fransisco as well as Brisbane – Chicago on a later date.

Qantas said that this would open up more than 170,000 seats from Australia to the United States and they’ll be utilising their much-praised, 787-9 aircraft.

The original start date of the Brisbane – San Fransisco service still remains to start on the 9th of February, and the initial date for the Chicago service will now be on April the 20th, 2020.

It’s recently been announced that Qantas will actually push forward their Chicago service to now start five days earlier on the 15th of April 2020.

Below is the schedule for both flights if you wanted to know:

QF59 will depart Brisbane at 8:35 pm and arrive into San Francisco at 3:15 pm the same day

QF60 will depart San Francisco at 10:15 pm and arrive into Brisbane at 6:00 am +2

QF85 will depart Brisbane at 3:30 pm and arrive into Chicago at 4:40 pm the same day

QF86 will depart Chicago 9:50 pm and arrive into Brisbane at 6:10 am +2

In total, the Qantas 787-9 features 236 seats which are spread across three cabins, Business, Premium and Economy Class. There are 42 1-2-1 configured business seats which have a pitch of 46” and a width of 24-25.” There are 28 premium economy seats, and they’re laid out in a 2-3-2 configuration and have a pitch of 38” and width of 20.5” while the economy cabin features 166 seats with every seat having a pitch of 32” and a width of 17.2.”

Using points to book these new services:

• Qantas Frequent Flyer – 41,900 points one-way Economy, 72,000 points one-way Premium Economy, 96,000 points one-way Business.
• American AAdvantage – 40,000 points one-way Economy, 80,000 points one-way in Business.
• Alaska Airlines – 42,500 points one-way Economy, 47,500 points one-way Premium Economy, 55,000 points one-way Business.

Sadly even though these routes are brand new, it’s still going to be quite difficult to grab an award seat on the services. Qantas is able to fill all of the US flights well as they’re always in extremely high demand, especially if you’re after a premium cabin award.

While the date change isn’t a big difference at all, it’s still worth posting as people like to know these types of things and keep up to date.

Will you be flying on one of these new services to the United States directly from Brisbane?

H/T – Chicago Business Journal