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Dallas/Fort Worth is the home of American Airlines – Qantas’ transpacific partner – so it’s a destination that can act as a gateway for Qantas flyers wanting to reach a myriad of other locations within the United States. That’s why Qantas already operates flights between Sydney and Dallas and why the airline has now announced that it will also fly to Dallas from Melbourne.
Earlier this morning (Australian time), Qantas confirmed what Dallas/Fort Worth Airport could not keep to itself over the weekend – it plans to launch flights between Melbourne and DFW towards the end of the year.
The route will launch on 2 December 2022 and as things stand, the schedule looks like this:
QF21 MEL 14:00 – 12:45 DFW (Mon, Wed, Fri & Sat)
QF22 DFW 19:10 – 05:45+2 days MEL (Mon, Wed, Fri & Sat)
Qantas will use its Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners to operate this route which at almost 9,000 miles in length, will become the 5th longest scheduled commercial route in the world.
Contrary to what DFW Airport reported over the weekend, seats for this flight were not opened up for sale on Saturday (they weren’t even on sale on Sunday) but seats are now available on Qantas.com.
Qantas 787-9 Dreamliner
The 787-9 Dreamliner is the newest aircraft to enter Qantas’ fleet and it was purchased with the airline’s longest routes in mind.
The Qantas Dreamliner briefly held the record for the longest scheduled commercial flight in the world with its non-stop service between Perth and London (Singapore Airlines now holds the record for its Singapore – JFK route) and the new route between Melbourne and Dallas is only around 20 miles shorter.
The Business Class cabin on the Qantas Dreamliner offers 42 seats in a 1-2-1 layout (it’s an all-aisle access cabin) and is a very nice place to spend a flight (reviewed here).
The Premium Economy cabin offers seats in a 2-3-2 layout with 38″ of pitch (legroom) and a little over 20″ space between the armrests…which is par for the course for most Premium Economy Cabins.
The bad news in the Qantas 787-9 is mostly limited to the Economy Class cabin where, despite offering 32″ of seat pitch, the 17″ wide seats are very, very tight for flights as long as the ones the Dreamliners fly.
I’ve flown between Los Angeles and London (10 – 11 hours) in the American Airlines 777 Economy Class cabin which offers seats with similar dimensions and I have no idea how passengers put up with so little space on flights of 15+ hours in length.
I cannot imagine subjecting myself to 18 hours (once you include the time waiting for take-off and the time waiting to disembark) in this Economy Class cabin. If I absolutely had to fly between Melbourne and Dallas in Economy Class, I’d break up my journey on the West Coast of the United States.
Bottom line
Qantas has announced that it plans to launch a new route between Melbourne and Dallas/Fort Worth from 2 December 2022. The route will be served 4x/week and will be operated by Qantas’ 787-9 Dreamliners. Bookings for this route are now open on Qantas.com.
Featured image courtesy of Denise Jans
