QANTAS: Shuffles Tokyo flights between Narita and Haneda Airports

Tokyo has two commercial airports: Haneda, which is closer to the city, and Narita, which is further away. Narita is seen as the most appealing airport because of its proximity to Tokyo. However, it also has a paucity of vacant slots, so they are much harder to obtain.

Qantas flies into both, depending on where you come from in Australia: Brisbane, Melbourne, or Sydney.

Haneda to become Qantas’ primary Tokyo destination

From early 2025, daily Qantas flights from Brisbane and Melbourne will move to Tokyo Narita. That means all its Australian flights, including from Sydney, will touch down at Haneda rather than Narita.

Flight Details

Here is the way all the flights on Qantas A330s will work by Australian origin once all are concentrated at Haneda:

Brisbane

• QF61 departs Brisbane 11:45, arrives Tokyo Haneda 20:00
• QF62 departs Tokyo Haneda 06:50, arrives Brisbane 16:45

This is a big change for those departing from Tokyo, where the current departure time is 21:30 in the evening. It will move to very early morning at 06:50, which could involve a very early departure from your Tokyo hotel (the monorail service only starts at 5 am), or more comfortably a night at an Airport hotel.

Melbourne

• QF79 departs Melbourne 10:40, arrives Tokyo Haneda 20:15
• QF80 departs Tokyo Haneda 21:55, arrives Melbourne 09:15 + 1 day

Sydney

• QF25 departs Sydney 20:30, arrives Tokyo Haneda 05.20 +1 day
• QF26 departs Tokyo Haneda 22:00, arrives Sydney 08.40 +1 day

There will be an anomaly in the Sydney flights. Qantas currently runs QF59 & QF60 between Sydney and Haneda, but since it only has permission for three flights at Haneda, these will be swapped to Narita.

• QF59 departs Sydney 11:10 arrives Tokyo Narita 20:10
• QF60 departs Tokyo Narita 22:00, arrives Sydney 8:55 +1 day

2PAXfly Takeout

These changes are only made possible by Virgin Australia relinquishing its Cairns to Tokyo slots from March 2025. Originally intended to be Brisbane to Tokyo pre-pandemic, this was changed to Cairns once the post-voluntary administration Virgin Australia, now owned by Bain Capital, got rid of the airline’s A330 fleet.

As a Boeing 737-only airline, that aircraft could not travel the Brisbane to Tokyo distance, hence Cairns as the departure point.

I imagine that Qantas will be angling to get that fourth slot out of Haneda as well so that it can concentrate all its operations at one airport.

There is no Qantas-owned/run lounge at either Tokyo airport, but at Haneda, you can access OneWorld partners, Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific lounges.