Cheap Flights

Hence, no matter where you are, you are most likely to take at least one flight to or during your holiday in Australia. Located in the southern hemisphere, Australia is a distance from most other major tourist cities – be it New York, London or Paris. Even within Australia, many travelers opt to fly because of the sheer distance: Australia may be just one country, but travel distances between Australian cities are far - Australia’s total land area is just slightly smaller than the 48 contiguous US states.

To give you an idea of distances: a domestic cross-continent flight between Sydney and Perth takes about 5 hours. A domestic flight between Brisbane (in east Australian state Queensland) to Adelaide (in south Australia) takes 2 hours. Even a domestic flight between Melbourne (in southeastern Australian state Victoria) and Hobart (in southern most Australian state Tasmania) takes around 45 minutes.

An international flight will take much longer, as Australia is not described as being “down-under” for no reason. A flight between the famous Kangaroo route London-Singapore-Sydney takes a whopping 22 hours! This does not include the hours spent in a mandatory stopover somewhere – usually Bangkok, Dubai, Hong Kong or Singapore, depending on the airline, which can easily add another 2-6 hours to the total travel time. An international flight between New York and Melbourne takes around 22 hours. Again, a mandatory stopover is excluded – usually in Hong Kong or Los Angeles, depending on the airline.

Nothing much can be done about flight distances or time taken to travel to Australia, but we can certainly make the most out of the necessity to fly while holidaying in Australia to get cheap airfares. To make the most out of cheap travel to and around Australia, try to fly into larger airports with better connecting flights. This means more competition among carriers, which means cheap airfares and cheap travel options for you!

Thanks to budget or low-cost carriers, cheap travel to Australia is now a reality, with permanently cheap flights to Australia. Budget carriers that offer cheap airfares in and around Australia are Jetstar, Tiger Airways Australia and Virgin Blue. Budget carriers that offer cheap airfares to Australia include Air Asia, Viva Macau Airlines and V Australia (Virgin Blue’s long haul flights brand name).

The main drawback about flying budget anywhere in the world is that the budget carriers operate short-haul routes, and they tend to operate out of secondary international airports. What this means that depending on your point of origin, your flight adventure to Australia is not for the faint-hearted: usually the convenience of direct flights is traded in for a plethora of airline, airport and plane changes when flying budget. Pack accordingly and be prepared to be on the move a lot and for long hours.

Depending on your point of origin, it pays to do your sums carefully before booking your flight to ensure that the indirect flight to Australia via budget carriers is a lot cheaper than flying direct on another international carrier. Sometimes, especially last minute flights, it is possible to fly direct into Australia on normal international carriers at airfares equaling that of multiple flights on budget carriers.

For flights into Australia, the budget carriers operate international flights into Australia from limited destinations. The most popular destination to catch a budget flight onward to Australia is from Denpasar, Bali, followed by Auckland/Christchurch in New Zealand. Denpasar is popular with travelers coming in from the North (Asia, Europe, or the Middle East).

From Denpasar, you can transfer to budget carriers Virgin Blue / V Australia or Jetstar onward to Australian cities like Sydney or Melbourne. Alternatively, you can fly from across the Pacific Ocean from the US west coast cities and/or South American cities into Auckland / Christchurch, and then onward to Gold Coast via budget carrier Jetstar, or via Virgin Blue (on sister brands Pacific Blue) to Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sydney and Melbourne.

To fly cheaply and directly into Australia from other destinations via budget carriers, some of the more popular routes are summarized here:

  • Los Angeles to Sydney on Virgin Blue / V Australia
  • Bangkok to Melbourne on Jetstar International
  • Ho Chi Minh City to Darwin on Jetstar International
  • Honolulu to Sydney on Jetstar International
  • Kuala Lumpur to Gold Coast, Melbourne or Perth on Air Asia X
  • Macau to Sydney on Viva Macau Airlines
  • Osaka to Gold Coast on Jetstar International
  • Singapore to Darwin, Perth on Jetstar; or to Perth on Tiger Airways
  • Tokyo to Gold Coast on Jetstar International.

The beauty about flying with budget carriers is that the price of one-way tickets is usually very attractive. Buying cheap one-way tickets is the best way to travel cheaply in Australia! Plus one-way tickets gives you the flexibility of traveling in and around Australia, and then fly out of Australia from another Australian destination via another route using the same or different budget carrier. Many travelers make good use of this flexibility to get the most out of their holiday in Australia.

Within Australia, the choice of cheap travel options to other Australian cities are expanded, with the inclusion of Tiger Airways (operates domestic flights from Melbourne and Adelaide) and the regional carriers Rex Airlines, SkyWest and Airnorth. Tiger Airways flies from Melbourne and Adelaide to Alice Springs, Canberra, Gold Coast, Hobart, Perth, Sunshine Coast and Sydney. Jetstar Airways offers many domestic flights from their primary hub in Melbourne and secondary hubs Brisbane and Sydney to Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Gold Coast, Hobart and Sunshine Coast. By far, Virgin Blue’s network in Australia compares to that of national carrier Qantas. Virgin Blue’s main hub is Brisbane, and their secondary hubs are Sydney and Melbourne. Their focus cities include Adelaide, Cairns, Canberra, Darwin, Gold Coast, Hobart, Perth and Sunshine Coast.

Travelers on the lookout for cheap travel take note: the Sydney-Melbourne flight route is one of the world’s most traveled flight path, so expect to get lots of choice and low airfares for this flight path!

Do not pass off premium carriers like Qantas or even Singapore Airlines. Incidentally, these two airlines often engage in price wars, which lead to a general slashing of airfares around holiday seasons. Look out for last minute cheap flights by these premium carriers on popular routes such as the London-Singapore-Perth Kangaroo route.

Finally, sign up for a FlyBuys card, chalk up points while shopping for groceries and other necessities at Coles, K-Mart, Target, Bi Lo or LiquorLand and fly for free around and out of Australia!