The company said after two years of travel restrictions caused by Covid-19, people were putting travel ahead of purchases.

It said there were signs the limited international aiarline capacity was driving domestic demand.

That was also pushing up the costs of domestic travel. Return flights to central Queensland were costing as much as $1000.

It was only in October that the company told investors that it was upgrading its profit to $1.3 billion after several years of major losses.

In 2022, the airline posted a loss of $1.2 billion.

Qantas said fuel costs were much higher than in pre-Covid days and would end up costing the company about $5 billion for the 2023 financial year.

“Operational performance has continued to improve with Qantas ranking as the most on-time domestic airline in October,” the company said.

It has spent about $200 million on rostering extra staff, recruitment and reserve aircraft which it said would help maintain performance levels during the latest Covid wave as well as the busy Christmas period.

The company has also been able to reduce its debt and said about $2 billion in Covid-related travel credits had been redeemed.

“While capacity is constrained, over a million sale fares were launched in October and further sale activity is planned for the weeks ahead,” Qantas said.

“The group is adding capacity as quickly as possible in the second half of the year while maintaining operational reliability.”