Originally Posted by
Seat 2A
Per WHBM: You know, Cairns had just opened their big new airport in 1987. I wonder if they strong-armed Qantas into doing Honolulu-Cairns, possibly just as a stopover on the 747's way to Sydney.
Per Seat 2A: And we have a winner! Congratulations to WHBM! ^^ Qantas is correct, almost exactly as he has surmised. Here's the schedule:
Qantas QF 25 Sydney (SYD) 115p-220p Brisbane (BNE) 300p-515p Cairns (CNS) 630p-720a Honolulu (HNL) 747-200 Thu Sat 4640 miles (No Local Traffic SYD-BNE-CNS)
I hadn't quite envisaged it in that direction. Qantas (and some others, JAL I think, possibly Korean) for a long time stopped off at Cairns southbound only. A strange arrangement, but it fitted in with the substantial tour groups, mainly Japanese, who would go to Cairns for a week on the beach, then onward by domestic schedule to Sydney or Brisbane for some time, before returning home direct. The services used to reflect this demand.
I do remember going to Brisbane in the late 1990s to set up our office there (still running
) and the city hotel we used had started taking Korean tour groups. I had several long chats with the restaurant manager, she had been a classic Australian family immigrant as a child from a small town in Britain which I know, and we had good discussions about it. She then described the issues with the Korean groups and the extraordinary combinations they un-knowingly took from the breakfast buffet (classic English-Oz). Eventually they had engaged a Korean cook and one special buffet table laid out, but now the roles were reversed, and she didn't have a clue what half the dishes were.