Today's announcement by the Qantas Group of additional capacity between Canberra and Adelaide is positive news for the local tourism and business community.

From 29 October, Qantas will add five extra services per week between Adelaide and Canberra, adding 740 seats to the market.

The new Adelaide services will:

• Depart Canberra at 11.05 and arrive in Adelaide at 12.35, and
• Depart Adelaide at 13.05 and arrive in Canberra at 15.35.

In addition, adjustments to Qantas's Melbourne to Canberra service will see 336 seats per week added to that route.

In total, these changes will see up to 1,076 domestic seats per week added to servicing Canberra.

In the lead up to Canberra's Centenary in 2013 this is great news for leisure and business travellers. With increased flexibility and capacity coming online the travelling public will have even more options to visit the nation's capital.

The ACT Government has recently established an Aviation Taskforce to coordinate ACT Government, tourism industry, business community and wider community support for direct international flights to Canberra.

The Canberra International Airport is currently investing about $420 million dollars in redeveloping its airport terminal and surrounding infrastructure, so today's announcement about additional domestic services is a positive sign for our market.