Qantas delays resumption of international flights until late December

The government of Australia has revised the anticipated timeline for completion of its vaccine rollout to end-2021 as well as the timeline for significantly reopening international borders to mid-2022.

Because of this, the Qantas Group has delayed its planned resumption of international flights from the end of October 2021 to late December 2021, at the earliest. Trans-Tasman flights are unchanged.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Qantas said, "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."

Qantas has said that it will contact any customers with a booking between Oct 31, 2021 and Dec 19, 2021, although the airline did admit that international booking levels are relatively low.

The airline is currently experiencing a high number of calls to its contact center which is resulting in long wait times.

While international flights are on hold, Qantas will continue to provide critical repatriation and freight flights overseas, and support the recovery of travel at home. The recently launched Trans-Tasman flights are unchanged and continue as planned.

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