Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Arrive in Australia After Flying Commercial for First Visit Since 2018 Royal Tour

Benjamin
3 Min Read

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have touched down in Australia.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex landed in Melbourne on April 14, local time, for their first visit to Australia in more than seven years.

The pair last visited Australia in October 2018, on an official royal tour that included attending Harry’s Invictus Games in Sydney. On that trip, the couple announced Meghan’s pregnancy with Archie. They stepped back as working members of the royal family in early 2020, and their current trip to Australia is not on behalf of the royal family.

During their 2018 trip to Australia, Meghan and Harry arrived to the continent hand-in-hand, touching down after flying in a Qantas private suite to Sydney.

However, this time around, Harry, 41, and Meghan, 44, opted to fly business class on Qantas, surprising some of their fellow fliers on the flight from Los Angeles to Melbourne.

“It wasn’t until we got off the plane that we realized it was them,” an American passenger told Australian outlet The Age.

Another passenger said they chatted briefly with the couple. “I said, ‘I hope you have a lovely time in Melbourne and I’m sure you’ll enjoy Sydney,’ ” the passenger told reporters. “We spoke about their children and that they were here for a couple of days.”

Meghan and Harry also opted out of an arrival photo-op. Instead, leaving in a convoy of vehicles without stopping to pose for the assembled media.

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The couple’s 16-day tour of Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand in 2018 included stops in Sydney, Dubbo (in New South Wales), Melbourne, Fraser Island (off Australia’s Queensland coast) and the lakeside town of Rotorua in New Zealand.

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During their current trip, Prince Harry and Meghan are expected to attend a variety of public and private engagements, including Meghan headlining Her Best Life podcast’s “girls weekend” retreat in Sydney and Harry serving as a keynote speaker on workplace mental health at the InterEdge Psychosocial Safety Summit in Melbourne. (The couple’s childrenPrince Archie, 6, and Princess Lilibet, 4, will not be joining them in Australia.)

Prince Harry and Meghan’s trip to Australia comes after they traveled to Jordan earlier this year, in partnership with the World Health Organization. The pair also visited Nigeria and Colombia for philanthropic causes in 2024.

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