Canberra Airport aims to have at least seven international destinations on its direct flight route map by 2028.
They are Auckland, Singapore, Doha, Vietnam and Hong Kong in addition to the existing Fiji and Bali. Other places in China may be under negotiation.
The airport is also making a pitch to Chinese airlines to start direct flights timed for the start and end of university semesters.
At the end of the month, its head of aviation, Michael Thomson, is to meet representatives of Cathay Pacific, Shenzhen Airlines and China Southern to discuss the idea of running direct flights for Chinese students studying in Canberra and the rest of Australia.
"There's a really big demand for Chinese movement into Canberra and vice versa, and that's driven by the student market," he said. The intended December, January, February period would also cover Chinese New Year.
Flights would come from Hong Kong and/or cities on mainland China.
Mr Thomson outlined the plan as he spelt out how he thinks the airport will operate in the coming four years.
At the moment, flights to 11 Australian destinations go from the airport. By 2028, he plans to have added another four domestic destinations, taking the total to 15.
There are currently two international destinations direct from Canberra (Bali and Fiji) but the airport plans to increase that to seven (the current two plus Doha in Qatar, Singapore (both are big hubs to further European or North American destinations), Auckland, Vietnam and Hong Kong).
Achieving that, though, depends on the government releasing slots for the airlines and (obviously) the airlines deciding they can sell the tickets to Canberra.
There were "on-going negotiations" with all the airlines he mentioned.
But Mr Thomson said he had good reason for his optimism. Qatar Airways flew to Canberra before the pandemic and he has indications that it intends to return if it gets the Australian government regulator's permission.
The airline uses airports like Canberra as a way of getting slots to fly to Sydney or Melbourne, with the condition for getting the slot. Immediately after the pandemic, Qatar chose Adelaide but Mr Thomson believes that Canberra is now on its list.
"Qatar are very keen to come back. It's a question of getting the slots but we are ready to go," he said.
Next year or the year after, Mr Thomson envisaged flights to and from Auckland, either with Qantas or with Air New Zealand. And he said, "We would hope Singapore would be coming back by then."
Even when Canberra Airport international flights go through Sydney, there is an advantage for Canberrans because they don't have to cart their luggage around terminals in Sydney, and on the return flight, they go through immigration in Canberra, which used to be very smooth and quick.
The airport is not far off having recovered its passenger numbers to pre-COVID levels. While international passenger numbers haven't reached pre-pandemic levels, domestic passenger numbers were 97 per cent of the traffic in 2019.
As well as getting flight numbers back up, recent figures show much improved reliability on Qantas flights to and from Sydney.
The latest figures show that in March, only 15 flights out of 936 between Canberra and Sydney were cancelled, a rate of 1.6 per cent.
At its worst, in July last year, the airline was cancelling more than one in every ten (11 per cent) of its Canberra-Sydney flights.
