dailynewsnblog
It is a good year for international travel to Las Vegas.
Qantas will begin the first-ever nonstop service to Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) in Las Vegas from Sydney Airport (SYD) starting Dec. 29, the Australian carrier said on Wednesday. The flights, which will last 13 hours and 55 minutes, will operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays with a Boeing 787-9 through March 12, 2027.
LAS is the Oneworld alliance carrier’s sixth U.S. destination after Dallas-Fort Worth, Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.
The new SYD-LAS route will also be part of Qantas’ close partnership with American Airlines. That pact includes reciprocal loyalty benefits for members of American Airlines AAdvantage and Qantas Frequent Flyer.
A Qantas growth story
The new LAS route is the latest from fast-growing Qantas and is fueled by the arrival of a new plane every three weeks on average.
The airline is taking delivery of new Airbus A220s and A321neos for its domestic Australia and regional flying, Boeing 787s for long-haul flying and Airbus A350-1000s for its “Project Sunrise” ultra-long-haul ambitions of linking Sydney with London and New York nonstop.
“Our historic fleet renewal is giving us the flexibility to deploy aircraft where we see demand, opening up route possibilities that simply weren’t there before,” Cam Wallace, CEO of Qantas International, said in a statement. “Las Vegas becomes our 101st destination and is a great example of how we’re using that capability.”
Wallace cited full charter flights to LAS that the airline has flown for the National Rugby League’s season kickoff since 2024 as an example of the travel demand in the market.
Other recent additions by Qantas include Perth Airport (PER) to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) in 2024, and Melbourne Airport (MEL) to Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) and SYD to New Chitose Airport (CTS) near Sapporo, Japan, in 2025, schedule data from aviation analytics firm Cirium shows.
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Qantas’ international business turned an operating profit of 300 million Australian dollars ($214 million) during the six months ending in December, the first half of the airline’s 2026 fiscal year, it reported on Wednesday.
Expanding Vegas’ international connections
The Sydney flight is the second big addition for LAS this year. On April 15, Air France will begin thrice-weekly flights to LAS from CDG, filling a gap in the airport’s European network.
Australia, however, is arguably a bigger gap for the airport. The country was the fourth-largest source of international visitors to Las Vegas in 2024 — a spot it has held since 2010 — after Canada, Mexico and the U.K., the latest Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority data shows. And while numbers had yet to recover to pre-coronavirus pandemic levels, they were climbing steadily after a pandemic low in 2021.
“Australia has consistently ranked as our second-largest overseas market and our top international market without a nonstop flight,” Steve Hill, president and CEO of the LVCVA, said in a statement. “More than 250,000 Australians visit each year.”
The only other regular nonstop flight from LAS to the Asia-Pacific region is operated by Korean Air to Incheon International Airport (ICN) near Seoul, South Korea.
LAS offers up to $3 million annually in airport fee waivers for as long as three years to incentivize airlines to launch new international air service, like Qantas’ new SYD-LAS nonstop.
More connectivity is good news for Las Vegas, as it has seen visitor numbers slide recently. In 2025, the number of visitors to the city fell 9% year over year to nearly 3.1 million, and the number of occupied room nights fell more than 7%, LVCVA data shows.
