London-Adelaide flights: which airline?
 

I'm looking for a return flight London-Adelaide next January-March. Which airlines should I be looking at? Thanks for any help you can give ...

Steve

A private airline is the only one you will get to Adelaide with from London.
But I will give you a little hint about airlines to Australia and it starts with Q

you can mention it ? The route to London is 24 hours . In order for us to help you you need to look at airlinequality.com . Why because we have no idea what quality your looking for . I would go economy via Cathay Pacific , P Economy via Qantas First Class via Singapore. Business via Qantas

Chads - on what are you basing these statements? Personal experience of having flown those routes with those airlines in those seating classes? Or???

Steve - there are no direct flights, at least one stop is unavoidable.

Check Malaysian (MAS), Heathrow to Kuala Lumpur, then straight to Adelaide. KL is a great halfway mark, better than making the long flight to SYD and then having to connect to an Adelaide flight. MAS also shows good fares, and it is a classy airline, you will be treated well.

For similar reasons, more expensive than MAS but not too far from others like BA and Qantas and Air NZ in price, is Singapore Airlines - again, the stopover in Singapore is another good halfway mark, then it goes straight to Adelaide, and it is a fine airline also.

Qantas does two stops, it is held in high esteem by many, it has a no-coddling practical vibe, you get what you need without extra frou-frou. Some folks like the frou-frou, so they pay extra to go with Emirates and put up with two stops, in Dubai and in Perth (where Virgin Blue takes over).

Hope this helps.

What in heaven's name is frou-frou. I have been on Qantas, Emirates, Etihad, Malaysian, American Airlines, Lan Chile, Cathay Pacific, British Airways, Thai International and Singapore Airlines to mention only a few and never seen or been offered frou-frou so it must not be available to Australians.
The Middle East/India is about the half way mark. Malaysia is only about 7 hours from eastern Australian ports and 5 from Perth. If you come to Australia on Qantas you can fly on the new A380 which has the most uptodate extras on it and much quieter and comfortable and yes I have been on it 3 times. Qantas is the airline of choice for a lot of Australians because we are Australian and it has a wonderful record and is the second oldest International Airline in the World it also has the largest flight schedule into and out of Australia and it flies out of Perth as does Jetstar so Virgin Blue does not actually "take over" in Perth - it is an option for flights as are some, Qantas is a domestic airline as well.
Actually owing to the astronomic taxes which are going to be imposed flying out of Heathrow next month I would be leaving from some other European port and flying with someone who does not fly out of Heathrow. Check on some of the taxes they are going to be charging as it may pay you to get a cheap flight from a smaller airport in the UK to Europe (Mainland) and get something from there. That is what I am doing next year because I think that 426 Pounds tax for 2 people is over the top and I think that many people will be doing the same. I cannot understand the wisdom of whoever thought of "ripping of tourists" as a great way to get revenue.
Check the flights and prices of Air Berlin, for instance, to Phuket or Bangkok and then Tiger Air, Jetstar and others to Australia. I think you will be able to get from Germany to Asia on Air Berlin for the cost of Heathrow's airport tax alone.

PS: You can fly into Darwin then to Adelaide or Perth then to Adelaide without adding extra miles - otherwise your best option would be through Melbourne then to Adelaide.

If you are looking at the least number of stops then Qantas flies LHR to Singapore and has 3 direct, non stop flights per week from Singapore to Adelaide (QF82) and similar 3 return flights - direct to Singapore (QF81).
With planning there is no need to stop in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney or Darwin.

Mind you that London tax sounds horrendous!

You need to check the timetables on the Qantas website.

Love travel Aus - are the Singapore flights on Jetstar or Qantas? I have my own family wanting to do similiar. Its also a good alternative if you live in Tassie as there are direct flights from Hobart to Adelaide which would be an alternative to taking a Jetstar flight in the middle of the night through Darwin. Although if someone was going to offer me a lacy little ballet number ( frou frou ) I might reconsider.

Hi - this is what it says on the website:

QF 81 Operated by: Qantas Airways
Depart: Adelaide 6. Nov 14:00
Arrive: Singapore 6. Nov 18:30
Stopover: -
Total Time: 7:00 hours
Aircraft: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE A330-300

QF 82 Operated by: Qantas Airways
Depart: Singapore 24. Nov 22:20
Arrive: Adelaide 25. Nov 07:40
Stopover: -
Total Time: 6:50 hours
Aircraft: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE A330-300

So they are Qantas flights.
They do not run every day - and the dates are just ones I put in to get some information for you.

I am not sure that there are any direct and non stop Qantas flights Hobart to Adelaide - you will need to check this on the site.

Happy planning!

I think you are right LoveT - I think its a ( shudder ) Tiger Airways flight thats direct.
Thanks for taking time to let us know about those flights anyway - sounds good!

Thanks for the help, guys. And the winner is ... Cathay.
SA - here I come :)

Steve

That's great, I hope you get a stopover in either Singapore or HK - both wonderful cities.

Virgin Australia just started operations (aka Virgin Atlantic) and if you have American Express rewards you can fly buisness class (their version of first class).

Since I have not been to this area so I am not sure i am of any help, just a thought....

Second the suggestion for a stopover en route - happy travels!