Australia's national carrier is finally adding Cape Town to its route map. Qantas will launch a seasonal direct service between Sydney and the Mother City, starting 19 October 2027 and running through to 24 March 2028 — the southern-hemisphere summer, when Cape Town is at its best.
The flights, numbered QF89, will run three times a week on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. The timing is a genuine win for travellers: leave Sydney in the morning and land in Cape Town the same day, skipping the Johannesburg connection many passengers currently make with partner airlines such as Airlink. Return economy fares start at AUD 2,470, which works out to roughly R28,000.
Expect nearly 30,000 extra seats on the Australia–South Africa corridor over the season. The route joins Qantas's existing Perth–Johannesburg and Sydney–Johannesburg services, and only became possible because of new 787-9 deliveries arriving in late 2027 as part of the airline's biggest-ever fleet renewal programme.
The numbers behind the decision are striking. More than 120,000 Australians visited South Africa in 2025, and in June 2026 Australia overtook Germany to become South Africa's third-largest overseas tourism market, with arrivals up 19% year on year. There's a strong diaspora pull too: around 225,000 South African-born people live in Australia, roughly a quarter of them in New South Wales.
Cape Town's tourism and trade agencies welcomed the news, pointing out that better air access tends to lift business travel, investment and job creation in the Western Cape, not just leisure tourism.
For travellers, this is the first time Qantas has linked Australia's largest city directly to Cape Town, and it makes a two-country holiday far simpler to plan. Pair a South African safari or the Cape Winelands with a stopover in Sydney, or reverse it. South Africans with family Down Under get a one-stop-free option in peak summer, while Australians get same-day arrival into one of the world's great coastal cities. Seats on a thrice-weekly seasonal route tend to sell quickly, so booking early — especially for December and January — is worth doing.
