Qantas Airline has previously announced to put up international tickets for sale from July 1 but now new plans have deferred these dates to Oct. 31, with the exception of flights to neighbouring New Zealand.
Highlights:
1- Flights to most international destinations to now resume late October 2021
2- Trans-Tasman flying to ramp up from July 2021
3- New flexibility for international bookings, with unlimited flight date changes
Australia closed its international borders last March except for citizens and permanent residents, forcing Qantas to ground its international fleet except for repatriation charters and cargo flights.
Qantas is planning to resume flights to 22 of its 25 pre-COVID international destinations including Los Angeles, London, Singapore, and Johannesburg from 31 October 2021.
Qantas won’t initially resume direct flights to New York, Santiago, and Osaka, but remains committed to flying to these three destinations. In the meantime, customers will be able to fly to these destinations under codeshare or Oneworld arrangements with partner airlines.
However, New Zealanders were allowed to enter without quarantine requirements from the end of last year, but some states temporarily revoked it on Wednesday after a new cluster emerged in its largest city of Auckland.
Border closures and speedy contact tracing have helped Australia keep its COVID-19 numbers relatively low. It has recorded just under 29,000 COVID-19 cases and 909 deaths since the pandemic began.