Despite hopes of resuming international flights as soon as October this year, Qantas have now pushed back all international flights until at least December 2021.
This comes in the wake of the Federal Government revealing that international travel wouldn’t return to normal levels until at least mid 2022.
Flights to New Zealand under the travel bubble will not be affected.
A statement from Qantas confirmed that it was the impact of this Federal Government announcement that led to the increasing of their international flight delay.
A Qantas spokeswoman told the Daily Mail: “The Federal Government has revised its anticipated timeline for the completion of Australia’s vaccine rollout to the end of 2021 and its time for significantly reopening our international borders to mid-2022.”
In a further statement, a Qantas spokesperson speculated: “We remain optimistic that additional bubbles will open once Australia’s vaccine rollout is complete to countries who, by then, are in a similar position, but it’s difficult to predict which ones at this stage.”
“We will keep reviewing these plans as we move towards December and circumstances evolve.”
In Qantas’s half-year trading update in February, the airline had planned to resume most international routes from October 31, including routes to London, Los Angeles and Singapore.
Margy Osmond of the Tourism and Transport Forum told News.com.au of her bleak reaction to this news.
“No timetable condemns us virtually to being the lost kingdom of the South Pacific when the rest of the world is opening up.”
“We will see more job losses and we will see many many business failures.”
