American Launching Los Angeles To Brisbane Flights… Temporarily

American Airlines is launching a new long haul route, as flagged by @IshrionA, though unfortunately it won’t last for long.

American fills in for Qantas on Los Angeles to Brisbane route

Currently, Qantas operates up to daily flights between Los Angeles (LAX) and Brisbane (BNE), using Airbus A330-200s. For the upcoming peak season, American will be taking over some of those flights.

Specifically, between December 5, 2025, and January 30, 2026, American will fly 3x weekly between Los Angeles and Brisbane, replacing Qantas’ frequencies. Here’s the Qantas frequency that American will be taking over:

QF16 Los Angeles to Brisbane departing 8:30PM arriving 5:00AM (+2 days)
QF15 Brisbane to Los Angeles departing 7:25PM arriving 2:30PM

American will operate the 7,161-mile route with a Boeing 787-9, featuring 285 seats, including 30 business class seats, 21 premium economy seats, and 234 economy seats. American will fly the westbound flight on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Fridays, and it’s blocked at 14hr30min, while American will fly the eastbound flight on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and it’s blocked at 13hr5min.

So during this period, Qantas will operate the route 4x weekly, while American will operate the route 3x weekly.

Brisbane has received quite a bit of new service from US airlines in recent years, thanks to significant incentives for offering such service. I suspect this route won’t be eligible for any major incentives, since American is just temporarily filling in for Qantas.

This new route complements American operating daily seasonal flights to Brisbane out of Dallas (DFW). In the Los Angeles to Brisbane market, Delta also operates 3x weekly seasonal flights.

We haven’t seen all that much long haul expansion from American in recent years, especially out of Los Angeles. Seemingly the only way for American to grow is to simply fill in a flight for a partner.

Why American is filling in for Qantas on this route

In Northern Winter, US airlines struggle with where to fly their wide body aircraft profitably. Meanwhile in the Southern Hemisphere, that time of year is peak season, where airlines have to do everything possible to maximize capacity.

American and Qantas have a transpacific joint venture, so American is essentially taking over a few weekly frequencies on this route so that Qantas can expand elsewhere. What’s causing this change? Well, Qantas has just announced a larger shake-up to its international network.

In December 2025, Qantas is launching new routes from Perth (PER) to both Auckland (AKL) and Johannesburg (JNB) using Airbus A330s, so presumably that’s (in part) what the aircraft being freed up here will be used for. Then the airline will have a bit more wiggle room in its schedule come February, which is when the peak season starts to slow down a bit.

We’re also seeing a larger capacity shift across the Pacific:

• In December 2025 and January 2025, Qantas will increase Melbourne (MEL) to Dallas (DFW) service from 4x weekly to 7x weekly
• Starting in January 2026, Qantas will continue to operate Sydney (SYD) to Dallas (DFW) service daily, but will go from 4x weekly A380s to daily A380s (so 3x weekly 787 frequencies are being replaced by A380s)

Bottom line

In December 2025 and January 2026, American will fly 3x weekly between Los Angeles and Brisbane, representing a new route for the airline. This will be American’s second service to Brisbane, as the airline also flies there out of Dallas.

In reality, though, American doesn’t actually have plans to operate this route long term, but instead, the carrier is just filling in for joint venture partner Qantas. Qantas will instead use A330s to fly from Perth to Auckland and Johannesburg.

It’s always cool to see a new long haul route from American (especially out of LAX), but I’d say this hardly qualifies.

What do you make of American operating the Los Angeles to Brisbane route?