Qantas reopens international bookings on vaccine hopes
- 3 years ago
Qantas' move to put international tickets on sales from July 1 has prompted the government to warn travellers that Australian borders will only open when COVID-19 no longer poses a public health risk.
"Decisions about when international travel resumes will be made by the Australian government," deputy prime minister and transport minister Michael McCormack said on Tuesday.
Mr McCormack said ticket sales were a "commercial decision for airlines" and that the government was working on travel arrangements with countries, such as New Zealand, that have low community infections.The Australian government has banned citizens from leaving the country unless they receive an exemption, which can include travel for business or on compassionate grounds.
Qantas boss Alan Joyce has said that a wide distribution of a vaccine would be necessary for quarantine-free travel to resume to destinations like the US and UK and would be a condition of travel, along with the possible need for a "vaccination certificate".
The federal government has flagged possible compulsory vaccinations for travellers in its COVID-19 vaccination policy but it has not decided on its final position.
Qantas had previously suspended bookings to London and the United States until October, but has now scheduled flights to these destinations from July, showing optimism COVID-19 vaccines will be rolled out widely enough over the next six months to restart overseas travel.
However, services to Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan that were set to resume in March have now been pushed back to July 1, as the prospect of establishing COVID-safe "travel bubbles" with those countries evaporates.
A Qantas spokeswoman said the carrier had "aligned the selling of our international services to reflect our expectation that international travel will begin to restart from July 2021".
"We continue to review and update our international schedule in response to the developing COVID-19 situation," she said. New Zealand is the only international destination Qantas is currently flying to, after Australia reopened its border to travellers coming across the Tasman in a "one-way bubble".
While major routes such as Los Angeles and London are back on sale, Qantas is yet to return destinations including New York, Santiago and Fiji to its network.Even when the airline restarts long-haul flying it will be at a significantly reduced capacity after mothballing its fleet of 12 Airbus A380s super-jumbos in deep storage until at least 2023.
Most of its 11 Boeing 787s Dreamliners were also sent to storage in Victorville, in Southern California, but all except one are back in service operating either freight services or government-chartered repatriation flights, which in the past week has included operations from Frankfurt, Chennai and London.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
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