In a first for the Australian Coral Coast Community Qantas have announced a twice weekly flight between Melbourne and Exmouth to coincide with next year’s peak tourism season for the North West base town to the famed Ningaloo Reef.
The news marks the first time the north west town will be directly connected to the east coast and will shave off around 3 hours extra travel time over the usual transit in Perth. This announcements adds upon the WA’s Government’s push to attract interstate and international flights to destinations other than Perth. This already includes Jetstar’s thrice weekly service between Melbourne and the Busselton Margaret River region that commenced in April. Qantas typically also run seasonal flights between Broome and the East Coast and limited interstate services to Karratha and Kalgoorlie in the past whilst Silk Air had trialed Broome to Singapore flights.
The first flight is set to depart Melbourne on 30 April 2023, with the five-hour flights between Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport and Learmonth (Exmouth) Airport to run twice a week on Thursdays and Sundays.
The announcement caps of an already great time for Exmouth having recently been crowned Australia’s Top Small Tourism Town for 2022 with WA tourism minister Roger Cook noted as saying “Our tourism strategy is focused on attracting more tourists to support local business to sustain more local jobs and support more local businesses,”. He also added “We also want to make it easier for tourists from interstate and overseas to fly direct to regional WA” .
The direct flights are set to be available during Exmouth peak season from April until October 2023, and economy class seats are on sale now from $399 one-way. Qantas Frequent Flyers will also be pleased to find classic economy reward seats for 18,000pts and business class for 41,500pts.
