QANTAS Airways will become the first airline to launch nonstop flights between Melbourne and Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport.

New flights to Haneda

The year-round flights to Haneda will operate daily from March 29, 2020* with an Airbus A330 aircraft, replacing the airline’s existing service between Melbourne and Tokyo’s Narita International Airport

The flights are expected to save travellers more than an hour commuting into the city and complement QANTAS’ existing daily flights from Sydney to Haneda which the Australian national carrier has operated since 2015.

Seasonal service to Sapporo commences

The announcement comes as the airline’s new seasonal flights from Sydney to Sapporo took off on December 16, coinciding with the busy ski season in Japan.

QANTAS is the only airline to connect Australia directly with the Hokkaido region and the service is the national carrier’s fifth route between Australia and Japan.

The national carrier has also announced it will extend its seasonal service to Sapporo for another year.

The flights will operate three times per week during the 2020-21 ski season from December 14, 2020 to February 27, 2021* with the airline’s upgraded A330.

The Qantas Group operates more than 40 flights per week from Japan to Australia. This includes Qantas’s flights from Brisbane to Narita; Melbourne to Narita (from March 2020, this will be replaced with Melbourne to Haneda); and Sydney to Osaka, Haneda and Sapporo (seasonal). The Group’s low-cost carrier, Jetstar, operates flights from Cairns to Narita and Osaka, and Gold Coast to Narita.

*Subject to government and regulatory approval.

QANTAS Airways aircraft photo gallery: