Qantas has paid homage to legendary bush poet Banjo Paterson by naming its second Dreamliner Waltzing Matilda and also announced a new direct route from Melbourne to San Francisco.
Another Dreamliner has been named and a new route from Melbourne to San Francisco unveiled as Qantas International CEO Alison Webster was joined by the Victorian Minister for Tourism and Major Events, John Eren, at the Qantas engineering base in Melbourne this week.
The occasion marked the naming as well as the Dreamliner’s first passenger service to Los Angeles.
Often called Australia’s unofficial national anthem, Waltzing Matilda was one of the 45,000 suggestions received from the public to name the airline’s new fleet of eight Dreamliners.
“Banjo Paterson is said to have written Waltzing Matilda while working on a cattle station in the outback Queensland town of Winton, which was also the birth place of Qantas 25 years later,” said Alison Webster, Qantas International CEO.
“The name of this aircraft will be seen by thousands of people a year when it pulls up at airport gates around the world. For Australians it’s a familiar touch of home. For some of our customers flying from overseas, there will probably be some googling to find out what it means. The Melbourne-Los Angeles flight was the first international service that we put our very first Airbus A380 on in 2008, so there’s a nice symmetry with this being the first for our Dreamliner as well.”
The Qantas Dreamliner will initially operate six days a week on the 14-hour flight between Melbourne and Los Angeles, complementing the existing daily A380 service between the two cities.
Qantas also announced an all-new route to be operated by the Dreamliner, with the introduction of Melbourne to San Francisco. The route will be on sale from early 2018 with flights expected to start by late 2018. Capacity between Melbourne and the US will be rebalanced to match demand for the two Californian cities, meaning the Dreamliner will fly to Los Angeles some days of the week and San Francisco other days.
“A significant number of our Melbourne passengers flying to Los Angeles already connect on to San Francisco. We also see strong demand from San Francisco, both from a tourism perspective and because of the business links between Melbourne and Silicon Valley,” said Ms Webster.
The Qantas Dreamliner features 236 seats across three cabins including the acclaimed Business Suite, nicknamed “mini First Class” by some frequent flyers, as well as a next generation Premium Economy seat and a significantly improved Economy seat with extra storage compartments and device charging outlets.
Earlier this year, Qantas revealed all eight Dreamliner names; Great Southern Land, Waltzing Matilda, Great Barrier Reef, Skippy, Boomerang, Quokka, Uluru and Dreamtime. The sequencing of the names is being announced as the aircraft are delivered.
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