Predictions of when international flights may resume/bans lifted

[jase05]

Won't be flying QF internationally until they come to SA which has said they will open at 80%.

Yep, likewise.
Here is their chance to at least send a couple of routes our way

 

[Pushka]

Now that would poke the bears in WA and QLD if they got zip and ADL opens to new QFi routes!

It would be worth it to do just one or two flights through SQ. Then we could come direct from Singapore into Adelaide using the Qantas group. With home quarantine I'd suggest we won't be able to do a transit flight. I'd book that!

 

[jb747]

Well for some destinations like the UK could QF use UK based crews to deal with this problem or are all the LHR flight crews based in Australia?

There was a cabin crew base in London. All of the pilots are Australian based. The Perth base was started for just the London flights.

I don't see why the QF crews would have more onerous quarantine than the pax.

Well at the moment the quarantine is 14 days for both. But, passengers only have to do it once. The crews would have to do it after every flight. So, if your London flight takes a week, then you’re into quarantine for whatever period you want to pick, and then it will be about time to do another flight. Effectively permanent quarantine. No matter how much it’s talked up, there’s no business case in any of this.

I don’t know how much of the travelling public that I would personally represent, but having seen the continual lockdowns, and border closures, I’m not game to leave the state, much less the country. It will take a couple of years of normality before I’d even consider going overseas. I know that many of you cannot wait, but I suspect that there is a much larger cohort who are very fearful of the behaviour that we’ve seen from our governments, and will want some level of certainty of being able to get home before they’ll be travelling anywhere.

 

[louie-m]

Given the apparent movement on NSW home quarantine (hopefully including AirBnB or similar) which presumably will mean an increase in cap numbers, what do we think the chances are of NOT getting bumped on business class award flights into Sydney on SQ in mid-Jan or JAL in early Feb? I'm wondering if I need to book a back up paid flight after all.

Anyone got any views?

 

[OATEK]

There was a cabin crew base in London. All of the pilots are Australian based. The Perth base was started for just the London flights.

Well at the moment the quarantine is 14 days for both. But, passengers only have to do it once. The crews would have to do it after every flight. So, if your London flight takes a week, then you’re into quarantine for whatever period you want to pick, and then it will be about time to do another flight. Effectively permanent quarantine. No matter how much it’s talked up, there’s no business case in any of this.

I don’t know how much of the travelling public that I would personally represent, but having seen the continual lockdowns, and border closures, I’m not game to leave the state, much less the country. It will take a couple of years of normality before I’d even consider going overseas. I know that many of you cannot wait, but I suspect that there is a much larger cohort who are very fearful of the behaviour that we’ve seen from our governments, and will want some level of certainly of being able to get home before they’ll be travelling anywhere.

I get that many will not want to risk being stranded. As for me, I don't know how many more chances I will get to spend time with my daughter/granddaughter in the UK, so will happily take the risk. I just hope there are enough like me to sustain some level of international flights to UK in 2022.

 

[Pushka]

I get that many will not want to risk being stranded. As for me, I don't know how many more chances I will get to spend time with my daughter/granddaughter in the UK, so will happily take the risk. I just hope there are enough like me to sustain some level of international flights to UK in 2022.

Same. I'm going come what may. And have convinced MrP the same. No one knows what is in the future and it may have nothing to do with health risks.....

 

[Batterytraveller]

I get that many will not want to risk being stranded. As for me, I don't know how many more chances I will get to spend time with my daughter/granddaughter in the UK, so will happily take the risk. I just hope there are enough like me to sustain some level of international flights to UK in 2022.

Both of us can totally afford, even relish the chance to get stranded, we can work from anywhere. We will definitely work on getting stranded in Japan for all of Ski season and my japanese tutor would relish the chance to house sit and look after the cat.

 

[Matt_01]

Won't be flying QF internationally until they come to SA which has said they will open at 80%.

Now that would poke the bears in WA and QLD if they got zip and ADL opens to new QFi routes!

Yep, likewise.
Here is their chance to at least send a couple of routes our way

I am looking to book travel in the Sep 22 school holidays and only want to arrive back in SA. I think Mrs and MissM will be sorted using SQ however I will be on OW. I was speaking with the VIP yesterday as I was trying to work out what I could book (availability and connections) using EK, QR, CX or MH and made the off handed comment to the QF agent 'I would fly QF if they flew into SA'. Not sure if it was conversational however the agent stated (or words similar) we are looking at all options and given the WA and QLD statements we will fly into any place place in AU that we can work with in relation to caps and the need to hotel vrs home quarantine. I would be quite happy to leave AU through any green list country to the UK and return to AU to SA via any Asian country. Most of the OW carriers can get me from the EU/UK to somewhere is Asia.

 

[SYD]

I am looking to book travel in the Sep 22 school holidays and only want to arrive back in SA. I think Mrs and MissM will be sorted using SQ however I will be on OW. I was speaking with the VIP yesterday as I was trying to work out what I could book (availability and connections) using EK, QR, CX or MH and made the off handed comment to the QF agent 'I would fly QF if they flew into SA'. Not sure if it was conversational however the agent stated (or words similar) we are looking at all options and given the WA and QLD statements we will fly into any place place in AU that we can work with in relation to caps and the need to hotel vrs home quarantine. I would be quite happy to leave AU through any green list country to the UK and return to AU to SA via any Asian country. Most of the OW carriers can get me from the EU/UK to somewhere is Asia.

Is the sandpit on the no-fly zone? You’d expect QR and EK(+QF codeshare) back to normal by then? Their vax rates are already very high but I guess they’ve got a lot of transit and arrivals from all over the place…

 

[Telemachus]

Given the apparent movement on NSW home quarantine (hopefully including AirBnB or similar) which presumably will mean an increase in cap numbers, what do we think the chances are of NOT getting bumped on business class award flights into Sydney on SQ in mid-Jan or JAL in early Feb? I'm wondering if I need to book a back up paid flight after all.

Anyone got any views?

It’s all about risk management, isn’t it? It is reasonable to think NSW will have a proportionate home quarantine solution in place, though I was dismayed to see today they feel the need to run their own trial independently of the ‘national model’ on which SA has had the lead.

Just my opinion but I wouldn’t be depending 100% on an award seat for return to Australia in Jan-Feb. Barry Abrams (BARA) is quoted in today’s Guardian saying there are about 6000 empty seats per day on the skeleton services being flown into SYD at present. So even in a scenario with essentially no change by Jan-Feb in inbound flights and seats available, there should be ample capacity to clear the backlog of returning vaccinated Australians. And there will still be restrictions on non-citizens entering Australia so no foreign tourists competing for seats.

The trouble is that Abrams went on to say that airlines and airports are not yet staffed to handle anything like full loads of arriving pax, and one is to infer they won’t be remedying that until they have certainty on the various key issues about which they are agitating.

There ought in theory to be sufficient capacity on inbound flights in Jan-Feb but if you think (as BARA warns) that pax loads may still be significantly constrained by other operational issues then you may not want to rely on your award booking alone. You could buy a seat on the still quite flexible terms being offered for changes and cancellation.

 

[robbo135]

Interesting that QF has got both Singapore and Japan for scheduled flights given Australians can't currently enter either country for the purposes of tourism. It's all well and good being allowed to travel outside of Oz but any holiday is still contingent on the country you're planning to go to letting you in and/or waiving quarantine requirements. The safer bets at this point are really the UK/US, but with COVID, who knows....

 

[dajop]

\

It’s all about risk management, isn’t it? It is reasonable to think NSW will have a proportionate home quarantine solution in place, though I was dismayed to see today they feel the need to run their own trial independently of the ‘national model’ on which SA has had the lead.

Still unbelievable this is an issue. Presumably they are worried about spread to non-LGA's of concern? According to covidlive:

On August 16, NSW had recorded 3,574 overseas acquired cases, by September 15 this number had increased to 3,637, so an increase of 63.

On August 16, NSW had recorded 10,404 locally acquired cases, by September 15 this number had increased to 43,370, and increase of 32,966.

Am I missing something? Foreign acquired cases are 1/500th or 0.2% of the local cases. You could even manage this risk further by arrival testing and putting those testing positive into hotel quarantine (probably half of those testing positive do so on arrival, if the profile is similar to those arriving in SIN where such data is released). So that would leave the risk of foreign traveller cases being out and about at 0.1% of local cases. I'm struggling to see the logic of all of this now. If there was hope of getting Sydney back to <10 new cases a day, it might make sense. But that is not going to happen.

 

[jakeseven7]

So QF stirring the pot again:

Qantas prepared to skip Brisbane, Perth to restart overseas flights

If Queensland and WA keep their borders locked up past December, Qantas is prepared to leave them off its restart schedule.

www.executivetraveller.com

I thought that blog was banned on here

Regardless, who cares about the slow states, they deserve what they get (or don’t get)…. And I live in one and was born in the other!

If this eventuates I will just have to creatively transit….

 

[Pom-DownUnder]

\


Still unbelievable this is an issue. Presumably they are worried about spread to non-LGA's of concern? According to covidlive:

On August 16, NSW had recorded 3,574 overseas acquired cases, by September 15 this number had increased to 3,637, so an increase of 63.

On August 16, NSW had recorded 10,404 locally acquired cases, by September 15 this number had increased to 43,370, and increase of 32,966.

Am I missing something? Foreign acquired cases are 1/500th or 0.2% of the local cases.

The fear, the fear, the fear, the unknown, the evil outdoors, the overseas people ... its all their fault ... just do this one more one thing then you'll be free, just this one more thing ....

/s

i'm so sick of it. no reason for closed international borders now.

 

[Princess Fiona]

The fear, the fear, the fear, the unknown, the evil outdoors, the overseas people ... its all their fault ... just do this one more one thing then you'll be free, just this one more thing ....

/s

i'm so sick of it. no reason for closed international borders now.

I think NSW Health and the State Govt realize full well that the current system of hotel quarantine has well passed its use by date in NSW. They are dealing with the far bigger issue on a State level right now of keeping the Covid cases manageable with respect to impact on the hospitals.
We already have our Paralympians doing home quarantine in NSW now. I don’t think that is so much a separate trial to SA but more a recognition that the HQ isn’t fit for purpose for them.
I would not be surprised if that is expanded very soon.

 

[OATEK]

I think NSW Health and the State Govt realize full well that the current system of hotel quarantine has well passed its use by date in NSW. They are dealing with the far bigger issue on a State level right now of keeping the Covid cases manageable with respect to impact on the hospitals.
We already have our Paralympians doing home quarantine in NSW now. I don’t think that is so much a separate trial to SA but more a recognition that the HQ isn’t fit for purpose for them.
I would not be surprised if that is expanded very soon.

Meanwhile Qld will build a quarantine facility on the basis of if you build it, people will come!!

 

[Telemachus]

I think NSW Health and the State Govt realize full well that the current system of hotel quarantine has well passed its use by date in NSW. They are dealing with the far bigger issue on a State level right now of keeping the Covid cases manageable with respect to impact on the hospitals.
We already have our Paralympians doing home quarantine in NSW now. I don’t think that is so much a separate trial to SA but more a recognition that the HQ isn’t fit for purpose for them.
I would not be surprised if that is expanded very soon.

Fair point about the Paralympians. From the NSW Health statement it’s clear some of the returned athletes were going to receive exemptions anyway from the full hotel ordeal, so the opportunity was taken to turn their home quarantine into a small scale trial.

Take a look at the detail of the current SA trial for ADF international arrivals: somewhat over the top with tests (assume PCR) on Days 3, 5, 7, 9 & 13 of a 14 day quarantine (according to SA Premier’s media statement yesterday). No knowledge yet of how NSW Health is doing it but if they can quickly validate and introduce a more risk-proportionate model then all well and good. The work on this could and should have been completed months ago: firm decisions need to be made and announced asap.

I’m in the cohort of people wanting for personal reasons to travel in December (as soon as the international departure ban is dropped) so I’m willing to accept some risks and put up with whatever is required on return. But entirely understand that others with less pressing reasons to go are pushing out their travel plans to Q3 2022 and beyond.

 

[hmmm]

Somewhat unrelated, but perhaps not. A friend of mine owns a Specsavers franchise and the communication from head office regarding reducing staffing levels for ‘x’ time has coincided with every single Victorian lockdown announcement with 100% accuracy. When a one week snap lockdown was announced, the communication was for two weeks of reduced staffing and shock horror…. The lockdown was extended by a week, leading me to conclude it was always going to be two weeks but it was less palatable to admit it from the start. Makes you wonder what the governments are telling industry but not the population.

 

[jb747]

The lockdown was extended by a week, leading me to conclude it was always going to be two weeks but it was less palatable to admit it from the start. Makes you wonder what the governments are telling industry but not the population.

Or it could be that Dan has done so many lockdowns now that people are working out how to translate what he says.

 

[Matt_01]

Is the sandpit on the no-fly zone? You’d expect QR and EK(+QF codeshare) back to normal by then? Their vax rates are already very high but I guess they’ve got a lot of transit and arrivals from all over the place…

Bit OT, not sure if the desert is the issue. In the past I have found getting J sets to ADL using EK or QR a bit of a challenge and in the past would arrive via MEL or SYD and connect. CX has an odd schedule and MH seems to be fairly consistent. Figuring out rewards is just a little more challenging at the moment and maybe a few more points or some date changes will solve the issue. Worse case is I will transfer a few more miles to KF and all come back with SQ.