Flights are being operated three times a week to Haneda aboard a two-class Airbus A330.

Queensland is gearing up for an influx of visitors from Japan ahead of the southern summer holidays with the return of Qantas flights between the Japanese capital and Australia’s Sunshine State. The just-relaunched service establishes the first direct connection between Brisbane and Tokyo’s Haneda Airport by any airline, replacing Qantas’ pre-Covid flights to Narita and saving travelers more than an hour commuting into downtown Tokyo on arrival.

Inbound flights on the route are timed to connect with the rest of Qantas’ Australian domestic network, including popular destinations across Queensland. Qantas Regional General Manager for Asia, John Simeone, said in a statement that Japan was one of the most popular destinations for Australian travelers before the pandemic, and the airline was already seeing a strong rebound in the demand for travel to Tokyo. “Qantas has a long history of serving the Japanese market and in fact later this month we’ll be celebrating 75 years of flying between Australia and Japan,” he added.

Qantas’ first-ever flight to Japan touched down at Hofu in western Honshu’s Yamaguchi Prefecture on December 18, 1947 with six passengers and 1,200 pounds of mail after a long journey from Sydney that lasted nearly 27 and a half hours. Services to Haneda began the following year. For its latest Brisbane–Tokyo Haneda route, the Australian flag carrier will fly its Airbus A330 aircraft, equipped with Business Suites and lie-flat beds, three times a week on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, offering more than 1,700 seats on the route each week.

The Qantas Group now operates more than 20 return flights per week from Australia to Japan, including Brisbane–Tokyo Haneda and Sydney–Tokyo Haneda; services between Melbourne and Tokyo Haneda are set to resume in March 2023. Jetstar also runs flights from Cairns to Osaka and Tokyo Narita, and from Gold Coast to Tokyo Narita.

qantas.com