Qantas is introducing direct Sydney to Cape Town flights from next year.
The South African service starts in October 2027 but tickets are already on sale.
Qantas currently has direct services from Perth and Sydney to Johannesburg.
Once launched, the Cape Town flights will add almost 30,000 seats between Australia and South Africa.
The route has been made possible by the introduction of new Qantas 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, due to arrive in late 2027.
“The new route comes 75 years after Qantas operated its first scheduled passenger service to South Africa,” the airline said in a statement.
“In 1952, the Wallaby Route to Johannesburg took 66 hours via Perth, the Cocos Islands and Mauritius. Next November, customers will be able to leave Sydney in the morning and land in Cape Town the same day.”
Qantas International CEO Cam Wallace said Cape Town was a true bucket-list city.
He said each year tens of thousands of customers used the existing Johannesburg services to connect to Cape Town through partner airline Airlink.
This showed there was a strong demand for a non-stop service.
Key route information:
- Sydney (SYD) to Cape Town (CPT) will operate as QF89, with the inaugural flight departing on October 19, 2027 and operating until March 24, 2028.
- The route will operate on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner three times per week on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays.
- QF89 is scheduled to depart Sydney at 9:15 and arrive in Cape Town at 14:40 (approx. flight time 14 hours 25 minutes).
- Economy return fares start from AUD$2,470
