In great news for residents of Australia’s capital city Canberra’s direct international flights are returning with a new service to start operated by Fiji Airways between Canberra and Nadi, Fiji. The new service marks the first time in almost 20 years that Canberrans have had the opportunity to fly direct to Fiji which was then operated by now defunct Air Pacific through to 2004. The new service will also be the first direct international flight to the ACT since several carriers operated limited services prior to the Covid-19 pandemic which included Singapore Airlines and Qatar Airways. Neither of those carriers have yet signaled any intention to return to Canberra in the current climate.
The new service expected to have a flight duration of 4-5 hours with the Fijian carrier new Boeing 737-8 Max aircraft is not just great news for those who will now save several hours travel time when not having to connect in Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane first but also opens alliterative one stop options for flights to North America and other Pacific destinations.
The new route which is expected to be formally announced on Friday April 14 by ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr, Fijian Deputy Prime Minister Viliame Gavoka and airport officials will also see the Fijian carrier jetting into the nation’s capital on Friday morning to mark the occasion with one of theier Boeing 737 8 Max aircraft
.In marking Friday’s expected announcement Canberra Regional Tourism Leaders’ Forum chair David Marshall told the ABC Fiji was aiming to becoming the Pacific’s international travel hub.
“The benefit of the Fiji flights is that [Fiji Airways] fly into San Francisco and Los Angeles, and also into Vancouver,” he said.
“It gives us access to North America — that’s the key to this.”
Canberra Region Tourism Industry Council chief executive Naomi Dale, who also lectures in tourism management at the University of Canberra, said businesses had been operating below capacity since the pandemic.
“We’re wanting to see an increase in those [tourism] numbers, because we’re still not quite at capacity with our hotels,” she said.
“We’re definitely ready to take those international flights and flights of all sizes,” she said.
