Is Qantas Freight the new Santa Clause?
Replacing reindeer with kangaroos…
If you have family spread across the globe, the Qantas advertisements utilising I Still Call Australia Home hit home harshly this time of year, tugging at even the toughest of Australian heart strings!
But Qantas plays even a greater role at Christmas than reconnecting loved ones across the globe, and the song used here could be that Australian Christmas classic Six White Boomers with white kangaroos replacing Rudolph and his gang of sleigh pulling reindeer.
The COVID pandemic strengthened Australia’s love of online shopping – we’ve been addicted for a while now – and our national carrier has estimated Qantas Freight will have shipped over 26,000 tonnes of Christmas freight to Australian regional towns and cities, and international destinations by the time Santa makes his own flight on December 24!
Compared to pre-COVID December 2019, the increase in 2022 is almost an additional 19,000 tonne on what we sent that Christmas and almost double last year.
And in a world where we wanted it yesterday, Christmas adds an extra dimension because of the need for it to under the tree by last deliveries December 24 at the very latest.
Talk about a logistical nightmare and coming at a time when airline performance seems increasingly under scrutiny with any hiccup making its way into the news cycle.
But Qantas Freight have planned well in advance following last year’s bumper season, with full awareness this year’s Christmas freight traffic demand would far outweigh Christmas 2021.
Their planning has seen the additional staffing and freight shifts to rosters over the past few months, and bringing into play more freight flights and bigger aircraft specifically for these flights including the Airbus A330 flying more domestically and the outgoing champion the Boeing 747 taking on the roles of Santa’s sleigh.
The air freight Christmas rush has been in full peak these past weeks with domestic Australian air freight deliveries exceeding over 500 tonnes on even a quiet day! To give you a visual… about 1 million iPads!
For any of us, that is the hard part to comprehend. The volume of individual packages. Go look under your tree right now and multiple it by millions!
And while the crazy will slow from December 24, Christmas returns are a big thing so the dependence on air freight will continue, especially for those of us who ordered clothing and the alike for January holidays only to need a smaller size!
But for now all is going smoothly and chances are come morning Christmas Day 2022 you can tell your kids Santa’s gift was delivered by a flying kangaroo and you won’t be telling a fib!