Australia’s Qantas hopes to restart flights from December to highly vaccinated countries like Singapore, US, UK
- Pending government decisions, Qantas is eyeing flights to countries including Singapore, Japan and Britain to resume from mid-December
- Australia set a target in July for 80 per cent of adults to be fully vaccinated for a calibrated reopening of its international borders
Qantas Airways on Thursday said it was preparing for international travel with countries with higher vaccine rates to resume in December, sending shares higher, as it reported a narrower annual loss of A$1.73 billion (US$1.26 billion).
The airline, which grounded its international fleet in March 2020 due to closed borders, said it planned to bring back five of its 12 Airbus SE A380 superjumbos by mid-2022 to fly to the United States and Britain, a year earlier than previously forecast.
It is a hopeful sign for travel in the Asia-Pacific region, where borders are largely closed and international travel is 95 per cent below pre-Covid levels, though the Qantas plan is dependent on government decisions. Shares rose as much as 3.7 per cent in early trading.
Australia set a target last month for 80 per cent of adults to be fully vaccinated for a calibrated reopening of its international borders.
Pending government decisions, Qantas said it expected flights to countries with higher vaccine rates like Singapore, Japan, the US, Britain and hopefully New Zealand, to resume from mid-December.
Flights to places with lower vaccination rates like Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and South Africa would restart from April 2022 at the earliest, it added.
