May 26, 2023
I was pleased to attend a lunch at Spruce in San Francisco Monday to celebrate the return of Qantas service to San Francisco International Airport.
Besides giving me the opportunity to talk about two of my favorite subjects (aviation and Australia), it was great to hear that Bay Area residents now have another nonstop flight to Sydney (United also flies the route). Though I’ll always have a certain affection for LAX since it was my home airport as an aviation geek kid, I’ll skip an international transfer through it whenever I can.
The inaugural flight arrived SFO yesterday at 6:15pm before departing for the return trip to Sydney at 10:25pm. The aircraft was Qantas’s Emily Boeing 787-9, which is painted in a special livery inspired by the work of the late Indigenous Australian artist, Emily Kame Kngwarreye.
Australia’s flag carrier has a long history connecting the Golden Gate with Oz. San Francisco became its first mainland US destination in 1954 when Qantas launched its transpacific flights using a Lockheed Super Constellation. Jet service arrived four years later with the airline’s first Boeing 707 flights. The 30-hour trip required three stops at Fiji, Canton Island (now part of the Republic of Kiribati) and Honolulu before continuing on to Vancouver.
Flights to San Francisco continued on and off for the next 60 years before ending abruptly in March, 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced Australia to close its borders and Qantas to suspend international service for almost two years.
Welcome to SFO, Qantas. You’ve been missed!
Qantas returns to SFO
Center photos courtesy of Qantas
A few facts about the flights:
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The aircraft on the route will be a Boeing 787-9, which carries 236 passengers in 3 classes (42 in business, 28 in premium economy and 166 in economy). Between 2015 and 2020, Qantas flew the Boeing 747-400 to SFO, but the airline has since retired the Queen of the Skies.
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A few facts about the flights:
-
The aircraft on the route will be a Boeing 787-9, which carries 236 passengers in 3 classes (42 in business, 28 in premium economy and 166 in economy). Between 2015 and 2020, Qantas flew the Boeing 747-400 to SFO, but the airline has since retired the Queen of the Skies
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Qantas flight 73 departs SYD at 9:55pm and arrives SFO at 6:15pm the same day. Connections to more US destinations are available with Qantas’s Oneworld Alliance partners, Alaska Airlines and American Airlines.
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Qantas won't have its own lounge at SFO, but premium passengers can use the Cathay Pacific lounge also in the International Terminal.
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With this schedule, a shorter SFO layover gets the aircraft back to Australia quicker where it can be reutilized. (Qantas still doesn’t have enough 787s to keep them sitting on the ground all day.)
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A Qantas rep told me the airline could eventually fly the Airbus A380 on the SFO route. She also said plans to fly to Brisbane from SFO and resume service to Melbourne are to be determined.