As Australians make their Christmas shopping lists – and check them twice, Qantas Freight is unveiling a specially decorated ‘Santa’s Freight’ aircraft as it prepares to deliver more than 50,000 tonnes of international and domestic freight for the busy festive season.

This year Qantas Freight volumes for the Christmas period are expected to be up five per cent compared to last year as online shopping continues to boom.

Qantas Freight will boost its operation to get gifts under trees and ingredients on tables in time for Christmas. The freighter fleet will fly around 550 additional hours across the domestic network in November and December, equivalent to 23 days of 24-hour flying.

Additional days of operation across the fleet will add 3,000 tonnes of domestic capacity, the equivalent of flying 12,000 fully-grown reindeer to cities and regional ports around Australia.

To celebrate the festive season, one of the six Qantas Freight A321 freighters has been gift wrapped in a new ‘Santa’s Freight’ livery. The merry livery celebrates the season and heralds the tonnes of packages, mail and popular Australian food such as seafood, seasonal produce and even Christmas puddings carried on Qantas Freight during the Christmas peak.

Igor Kwiatkowski, Executive Manager, Qantas Freight said the lead up to Christmas is one of the busiest and most critical times for the airline’s freight operations.

“While Santa and his elves have been preparing to fly gifts for kids around the world, Qantas Freight has been busy getting our fleet of freight sleighs ready for the Christmas peak.

We’ve increased flying hours, and we’ll have more support, extra capacity and our very own ‘Santa’s Freight’ aircraft to deliver more than 50 million kilos of freight this Christmas.,” Mr Kwiatkowski said.

Qantas Freight carries cargo around the world with five international freighters and in passenger aircraft belly space across the Qantas and Jetstar networks. Qantas Freight also operates 20 domestic freighters, including a core fleet of 12 dedicated freighters for major partner Australia Post, increasing to 16 during this Christmas period.

The domestic freighter fleet alone is expected to chart more than 11 million kilometers this year, the equivalent of about 745 trips from Hobart to the North Pole.

On the busiest days leading up to Christmas, across the global network, Qantas Freight will carry around 1M kilograms of cargo per day, which is around 70 per cent more than its usual daily uplift.

In addition to Australia Post’s parcels, Australian-made gifts and international orders, Qantas Freight will carry some of the most important cargo needed to make holidays merry and bright, including:

> Fresh produce such as mangoes, cherries, strawberries and stone fruit

> A Seafood including live, fresh and frozen lobsters, coral trout, mussels, abalone and prawns

> Beef, pork and lamb

> Fresh cut flowers to decorate tables

> Milk, yoghurt and cheese

> Cars and F1 vehicles to fuel racing dreams

> Critical supplies to keep Australia moving, from aircraft engines to rescue helicopters and medicines.