Qantas drops Asian hotspot sale

Qantas has opened a cut-rate return flight sale to the major Asian tourist destinations.

The sale applies for flights to Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, Singapore and Bali from October 2024 to August 2025.

Prices start at $519 and the sale runs until midnight Monday or until all 100,000 seats are snapped up.

The sale is not quite open slather; travellers can fly on select dates in that 11-month window.

But there are economy, economy plus and business class seats available. People can fly Perth to Singapore and back for $519 in economy or use 22,300 points plus $296.

Sydney to Bali return is going for $679. Flights from Adelaide to Manila are on sale for $899.

Premium economy deals start at $2799 from Sydney to Singapore return.

Qantas has put the pedal to the metal in terms of sales lately, as hugely opportunistic cracks open in the domestic market.

Budget airline Bonza has gone bust, opening the door open for Qantas-owned Jetstar to take a bigger slice of the low-price market.

Rex has been forced to scrap domestic capital-city-to-capital-city routes as administrators pore over the books after slashing more than 600 jobs.

This week, opposition transport spokeswoman Bridget McKenzie, penned an opinion piece titled “Is it time to force Qantas to break up with Jetstar?”

Senator McKenzie then walked back the divestiture sentiment just a few hours after the opinion piece was published, clarifying divestiture was “one of the various tools that the Treasurer needs to look at” but saying forcing Qantas to sell Jetstar was not Coalition policy.

Qantas’s 2024 financial year net profit fell 28 per cent this year to $1.25bn.

Released on Thursday, Qantas’s annual report shows former chief executive Alan Joyce collected $3.4m for the 2024 financial year, and he is still part of a long-term incentive plan scheme valid until 2026.

Mr Joyce left Qantas on September 5, 2023 and received $14.9m in the 2023 financial year.

The pay packet of new chief executive Vanessa Hudson was slashed from nearly $6m in 2023 to $4.4m in her first year as boss, as the Qantas board cut executive bonuses.

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