Melbourne-Sydney flights jump in price after competition collapse; Qantas; Virgin Australia

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“I think if we’d left it a month or two, we would have been playing double or triple that,” said Bronwyn.

Another traveller, Matilda Eder, had used a combination of Qantas points and less than $100 cash to fly to Melbourne from Sydney.

Eder has been switching to Qantas insurance to accumulate points for frequent travel.

“I want to travel a lot, but it is really, really expensive. A lot of the people we work with said, ‘You need to get onto points’. And so I’ve thrown myself into it.”

Eder said she was shocked by the price of flying from Sydney to Canberra for work. “My return flights are always over $500, which is a lot of money for a short flight,” she said.

Webjet said passengers flying around Australia in mid-January paid an average $435 return. This is 19.4 per cent cheaper than the average price of $540 in mid-November.

Over the same period, return airfares for the Sydney-Melbourne route became 1.1 per cent dearer ($550), while Brisbane-Sydney return flights were 0.2 per cent cheaper ($490). Flights between Melbourne and Brisbane became 13.8 per cent more expensive to $749, Webjet said.

The Sydney-Melbourne sector had 9.2 million seats available last year, making it the fifth-busiest route but still short of pre-COVID-19 travel numbers.

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Qantas Group, the country’s biggest airline, said the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics and Webjet data represented a small portion of overall flights. A spokesman said domestic fares for Qantas and Jetstar were flat in December 2024 compared to the previous year.

“Given the seasonality of travel, there are big shifts in demand between peak and off-peak periods at different times of the year, and therefore the cost of airfares can vary from one month to another,” he said.

“This month, we are seeing really strong demand for travel to Melbourne with the Australian Open, which is driving airfares higher on flights there.”

Rival Virgin Australia said it remained focused on “providing exceptional value and choice to Australian travellers”.

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“We continue to offer frequent sale activity where customers can pick up great value fares. For example, this week Virgin Australia released sale fares starting from as low as $57 (Sydney-Ballina, one-way Economy Lite) for travel between March and September,” a spokesperson said.

Flight Centre Travel Group leisure CEO James Kavanagh tipped better prices for travellers this year as airlines introduced new routes.

He said the top five domestic destinations since the start of December were Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.

Qantas on Wednesday announced changes to its loyalty program that will give frequent flyers the ability to earn more points when flying but raise the points needed for seat redemptions or upgrades.

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