Qantas and Jetstar are moving up the reopening of more international flights to hotspot destinations from Sydney and will operate regular flights to Delhi. These will be the first commercial flights for Qantas between Australia and India in almost a decade.
The acceleration in plans follows the Federal and New South Wales governments confirming that international borders would reopen from 1 November 2021 and the decision by the NSW Government to remove quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated arrivals – which significantly increases travel demand.
- All Australian-based Qantas and Jetstar employees able to return to work in early December 21
- Qantas to launch new route from Sydney to Delhi before Christmas*
- Flights from Sydney to Singapore, Bangkok, Phuket, Johannesburg, Fiji to resume ahead of schedule
- Early return of the A380
- More Points Planes for frequent flyers
Discussions have commenced with the NSW Government about supporting some of Qantas’ international services to Sydney through its recently announced Aviation Attraction Fund. Discussions are also underway with the Indonesian Government about welcoming fully vaccinated Australians back to Bali with reduced or no quarantine requirements, which would mean the resumption of Jetstar and Qantas flights from Sydney to the holiday island months earlier than scheduled.
Today’s announcement is in addition to routes already on sale from Sydney to London and Los Angeles. Bookings on these routes have been extremely strong, with more than 10 additional return services added between Sydney and London due to demand from Australians coming home in time for Christmas.
Qantas frequent flyers have also been booking seats in record numbers, with the largest number of points used on reward seats for a single day in the airline’s history occurring on Tuesday this week, with more than half a billion points redeemed. Frequent flyers can use their points to book one of millions of seats across Qantas, Jetstar and partner airlines as borders open.
Flights to Honolulu, Vancouver, Tokyo and New Zealand are still scheduled to commence from mid-December 2021, with other destinations to restart in the new year.
In line with current Federal Government requirements, these initial flights are limited to Australian citizens, permanent residents and their immediate families and parents.
Photo by Soheb Zaidi
