Qantas will set up a cabin crew base in Singapore – its largest international hub outside of Australia – as it looks to boost its capacity from Australia.
The new crew base will be operational in September, and will have 120 crew in the first year. Qantas anticipates this figure to grow up to 650 crew over five years.
The move follows the closure of Qantas’ Singapore-based low-cost subsidiary Jetstar Asia in 2025, a surprise move that impacted over 500 employees in Singapore.
According to Singapore publication The Straits Times, Qantas is expected to offer around 50 employees working with Australia-based Jetstar Airways new roles with Qantas.
Once operational, the crew base in Singapore will be Qantas’s fourth international crew base, after London, Auckland and Wellington.
Singapore is the Oneworld operator’s third largest hub, after Sydney and Melbourne. From the city, Qantas flies to Australian cities like Perth, Darwin, Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, as well as to London.
Qantas will also be increasing its seat capacity on flights between Singapore and Sydney, through the deployment of an additional Airbus A380 service.
The schedule changes take effect 1 December, and will mean that 13 of the airline’s 14 weekly flights between Singapore and Sydney will be operated by the superjumbo.
The deployment of the A380 to additional flights to Singapore comes as Qantas reveals “ongoing retesting” of its A380 network, “to ensure optimal deployment of available fleet given evolving economic environment”.
The carrier returned a 10th and final A380 from long-term storage in 2025, a move it says will drive growth in 2026.
