Qantas will expand the Qantas Club at Perth Airport and conduct a review of its future lounge offering in Perth to help meet the growing demand for premium air travel particularly from corporate clients and business travellers.

Qantas Domestic Executive Manager Customer Experience Samantha Taranto said planning had already commenced and preliminary works would start next week. It will open to customers in February 2013.

“We have seen a significant increase in passengers over the past couple of years in Perth, due largely to the mining and resources sectors, and we have outgrown the existing Qantas Club.” Ms Taranto said.

“The expanded lounge will be directly below the existing lounge and will comfortably seat an additional 140 customers to relax and work prior to their flight.

“Our customers have told us they want more lounge space, more seating, particularly during peak times, and we have responded.

“Our lounges, more flights, more destinations, wide-body aircraft, reliability, and frequent flyer program have seen us maintain our status as best for business and premium travellers.

“We are the only domestic airline that offers a meal and checked-in baggage to every passenger as part of their fare, no matter what time they are flying or where they are sitting.

The 400 square metre expansion, which will increase capacity of the lounge by almost one third, is being
constructed between gates 13 and 14 in Terminal 4. This will make the Perth Qantas Club the fifth biggest in the country.

The expansion will add more seating, work areas, bar and meals space and amenities as well as high speed Wi-Fi.

Ms Taranto said the review of lounges at Perth Airport will look at what future lounge space Qantas requires as the airport is redeveloped and Qantas expands its terminal space.

“The vast majority of flights into and out of Perth Airport are serviced by Qantas Group airlines including Qantas, Jetstar, QantasLink and our Fly-In-Fly-Out services. We expect this to grow in the future and we are starting the planning now to cater for future growth in customers wanting to use our lounges,” she said.

Qantas announced last month it will deploy wide-body Airbus A330s on all weekday Sydney-Perth and Melbourne-Perth services from May 2013.

Qantas currently operates around 100 return flights with more than 26,000 seats from Perth to Sydney and Melbourne each week – about 40 per cent more than any other airline.

The existing Qantas Club will remain open during construction. Qantas last refurbished and increased the capacity of the facility in 2010.