Qantas is ending flights between Sydney and Beijing, the third time it has halted the seemingly doomed route

• Qantas is ending its Sydney to Beijing flights from March 2020.

• It comes after low demand for business class flights and the rise in competition on the route between the two cities.

• Qantas, however, will continue its Sydney to Shanghai services.

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Qantas will stop its flights from Sydney to Beijing in March 2020.

The flight route happens five days a week with an Airbus 330 but Qantas said it is "not viable" because of "excess market capacity and weak demand for Business Class on flights between the two cities."

This marks the third time Qantas has halted the route. It first operated between 1984 and 1987, then between 2006 and 2009, and now 2017 to 2020.

According to the ABC, then Qantas executive general manager John Borghetti highlighted reasons why its attempts to launch the flights to Beijing in the mid-1980s and 90s had failed.

“The key reasons why they didn’t work then were basically commercial reasons. The traffic in those days was very much Australia traffic, leisure traffic going into China and it was very low yielding.

"And, at the same time, Australia ... didn’t have approved destination status out of China so it was very difficult for tourism to flow southbound.”

Since Qantas reintroduced the route in 2017, competitor flights between Beijing and Sydney increased 20%, and are expected to grow more in 2020, according to a press release from the company.

To try and boost its Sydney to Beijing performance, Qantas cut down the number of flights from daily to five times a week in October 2018. But now the flights are going to stop from March next year.

Qantas will continue its flights from Sydney to Shanghai.

“Our flights to Beijing have been underperforming for some time due to weaker demand as well as a big increase in capacity from other airlines,” Qantas International CEO Tino La Spina said in a statement.

“China is a significant market for Qantas and our direct services from and to Shanghai are performing well. With Beijing, we’re responding to what the market is telling us.”

Qantas will redeploy the aircraft used on the Beijing route to existing routes to other destinations in Asia.

If you're still aiming to get to Beijing or other areas in China, there are options through Qantas's partnership with China Eastern, as well as flights through Cathay Pacific, Cathay Dragon and Jetstar.

“We’ve got a strong partnership with China Eastern, so Qantas customers will be able to travel with them between Australia and Beijing and be rewarded as they would when flying with us,” La Spina added.

If you've already booked a Qantas flight to Beijing after March 2020, the airline will either give you a refund, a credit or put you on another service.

Earlier this week Qantas announced plans to cut its carbon emissions to zero by 2050 by investing in sustainable aviation fuel, capping its net emissions and doubling the number of flights that offset carbon emissions.