Qantas

Qantas Airways Limited ( KWON-təs), doing business as QANTAS or Qantas, is the flag carrier airline of Australia, and the largest airline by fleet size, international flights, and international destinations in Oceania. A founding member of the Oneworld airline alliance, it is the only airline in the world that flies to all seven continents, with it operating flights to Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America from its hubs in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, and Brisbane. It also flies to over 60 domestic destinations across Australia. Qantas is one of the world's oldest airlines still in operation, originally founded in November 1920. Qantas is an acronym of the airline's original name, Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services, as it originally served Queensland and the Northern Territory. Since then, the airline has undergone several changes, including nationalisation in 1947 and privatisation as a new company in 1967. It is popularly nicknamed "The Flying Kangaroo" and has the official slogan "Spirit of Australia". Qantas is based in the Sydney suburb of Mascot, adjacent to its main hub at Sydney Airport. As of March 2023, Qantas Group had a 60.8% share of the Australian domestic market. Various subsidiary airlines operate to regional centres and on some trunk routes within Australia, as well as some short haul international flights under the QantasLink banner. Qantas owns Jetstar, a low-cost airline that operates both international services from Australia and domestic services within Australia and New Zealand. It holds stakes in a number of other Jetstar-branded airlines in Asia, as well as Alliance Airlines and Fiji Airways.

History

Q.A.N.T.A.S. Qantas was founded in Winton, Queensland on 16 November 1920 by Hudson Fysh, Paul McGinness and Fergus McMaster as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited (Q.A.N.T.A.S.), beginning its operations with the Avro 504K, the airline's first aircraft. Q.A.N.T.A.S. eventually moved its headquarters to Longreach, Queensland in 1921, then to Brisbane, Queensland in 1930.

QEA era In 1934, QANTAS and Britain's Imperial Airways, a forerunner of British Airways, formed a new company, Qantas Empire Airways Limited (QEA). In December 1934, the new airline began operations, flying between Brisbane and Darwin. QEA flew internationally from May 1935, when the service from Darwin was extended to Singapore. Imperial Airways operated the rest of the service through to London. When World War II began, enemy action and accidents destroyed half of the fleet of ten. Most of the fleet was taken over by the Australian government for war service. In 1943, flying boat services resumed, with flights between the Swan River at Crawley in Perth, Western Australia and Koggala Lake in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. This linked up with the British Overseas Airways Corporation, BOAC, the successor airline to Imperial Airways, service to London. Qantas' kangaroo logo was first used on the "Kangaroo Route", commencing in 1944, from Sydney to Karachi, where BOAC crews took over for the rest of the journey to the UK. In 1947, QEA was nationalised by the Australian government led by Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley. QANTAS Limited was then wound up. After nationalisation, Qantas' remaining domestic network, in Queensland, was transferred to the nationally owned Trans-Australia Airlines, leaving Qantas with a purely international network. Shortly after nationalisation, QEA began its first services outside the British Empire, to Tokyo. Services to Hong Kong began around the same time. In 1957, a head office, Qantas House, opened in Sydney.

Jet age

In June 1959, Qantas entered the jet age when the first Boeing 707-138 was delivered. The current parent company, Qantas Airways Limited, was incorporated in 1967. On 14 September 1992, Qantas merged with nationally owned domestic airline, Australian Airlines, renamed from Trans-Australia Airlines in 1986. Australian Airlines's aircraft started to be rebranded as Qantas aircraft in 1993. Qantas was gradually privatised between 1993 and 1997.

Oneworld and Jetstar In 1998, Qantas co-founded the Oneworld alliance with American Airlines, British Airways, Canadian Airlines, and Cathay Pacific, with other airlines joining subsequently. With the entry of new discount airline Virgin Blue (now Virgin Australia) into the domestic market in 2000, Qantas' market share fell. Qantas created the budget Jetstar in 2001 to compete. The main domestic competitor to Qantas, Ansett Australia, collapsed in September 2001. Qantas briefly revived the Australian Airlines name as a short-lived international budget airline between 2002 and 2006. This subsidiary was shut down in favour of expanding Jetstar internationally, including to New Zealand. In 2004, the Qantas group expanded into the Asian budget airline market with Jetstar Asia, in which Qantas owns a minority stake. In 2007, a similar model was used for an investment into Jetstar Pacific, headquartered in Vietnam, and Jetstar Japan, launched in 2012. In December 2006, Qantas was the subject of a failed bid from a consortium calling itself Airline Partners Australia. In 2008, merger talks with British Airways did not proceed to an agreement. In 2011, industrial relations dispute between Qantas and the Transport Workers Union of Australia resulted in the grounding of all Qantas aircraft and a lock-out of the airline's staff for two days. On 25 March 2018, a Qantas Boeing 787 flew non-stop between Australia and Europe, connecting the two continents by air for the first time, with the arrival in London of Flight 9 (QF9). QF9 was a 17-hour, 14,498 km (9,009-mile) journey from Perth Airport in Western Australia to London Heathrow. On 20 October 2019, Qantas Airways flew from New York City to Sydney using a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner in 19 hours and 20 minutes, the longest commercial flight at the time.

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