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“At the moment this is our plan, we know it could change,” he said.
“It could have to be pushed out further if we don’t get to those vaccination levels, or if there’s quarantine requirements. But this is our best estimate of what could happen by the end of the year.”
Air New Zealand CEO Greg Foran said on Thursday that while he believed travel between Australia and New Zealand could resume by November, the unrestricted “travel bubble” that operated from April to July would not return.
“It’s going to be very difficult for both countries to get the case numbers down to where both countries are going to be accepting that… you can just operate as a free and open border,” he told this masthead.
Instead, Mr Foran said pre-departure tests and proof of vaccination would likely be required, and even then travel may not be possible to more conservative states.
Mr Joyce said Qantas had discussed its plans with the federal government, which had agreed its “broad assumptions are reasonable”.
The Qantas boss acknowledged that cautious state governments could override the road map agreed to by the national cabinet to reopen Australia’s borders after the 80 per cent vaccination target was achieved, but said it would be a “terrible shame” if people in NSW could visit London at Christmas but could not travel to Perth.
But Qantas is planning for that reality, Mr Joyce said, by Darwin as a transit point for its non-stop flights to London as an alternative to Perth.
Under its plan to restart international travel, Qantas said flights to Hong Kong would resume in February, but it would not start flying to destinations that currently have low rates of vaccination and high rates of COVID-19 transmission until April. That included Bali, Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok, Phuket, Ho Chi Minh City and Johannesburg.
Qantas has had to push back its plans to restart international flying several times over the past year. In February, it said it intended to resume flying to “most” international destinations in late October, and by May it had revised that to a “material” amount of international flying from late December.
Qantas said it expected to be flying at 38 per cent of pre-COVID domestic capacity in the September quarter, 52 per cent in the December quarter before rising to around 110 per cent in the first half of next calendar year.
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