Qantas, Virgin Australia, Flight Centre and Travelworld are campaigning for Queensland’s borders to open, along with those of other comparatively Covid-free states – but medical authorities remain cautious.
Qantas has launched a petition on its website, Safely Open Our Borders.
There is some dispute, however, about what constitutes “safely”.
The Qantas petition preamble says: “Australians love to travel. While it might be a while before we can fly overseas again, we’re lucky there are so many amazing destinations right here in our own backyard. Not to mention friends and family we long to see again. But that can only happen if our domestic borders are opened.”
The airline continues: “The health response to this crisis is our most important priority. That’s why we’re calling for decisions on domestic border closures to be risk-assessed against an agreed set of medical criteria and a shared definition of what constitutes a Covid hotspot.
“There is huge pent up demand for domestic travel with Australians wanting to get away on holiday after being stuck at home. We want to see Australians reunite with loved ones after months of being separated. And we want to see local businesses, and the one million people in the tourism industry, get back to work.”
Qantas says Covid-19 has contributed to an 82% fall in domestic tourism spend.
Brisbane’s Courier Mail newspaper has reported that Helloworld and Flight Centre have joined Qantas and Virgin in a four-week publicity campaign in Queensland in the run-up to the state’s election on Saturday, 31 October. The campaign does not favour one political party over another – it just tries to get the border message across.
Flight Centre founder Graham “Skroo” Turner told the paper: “A travel and tourism restart will be the key to Queensland coming out of the depths of the current recession.” Queensland-based Flight Centre is Australia’s biggest travel agent.
Helloworld chief executive Andrew Burnes said he couldn’t see why low-Covid-19 case states and territories like Western Australia, Tasmania, South Australia, the ACT and Queensland couldn’t open their borders to each other.
Virgin Australia chief executive officer Paul Scurrah was quoted as urging governments to consider opening borders where risk between cities was low.
Queensland’s medical community is backing the state’s Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young on the issue. AMA Queensland president Chris Perry told the ABC the state’s doctors “believe in the science of the Chief Health Officer, we believe Queensland should follow the advice of the Chief Health Officer and if she says the borders should stay closed, we think they should stay closed”.
MEANWHILE, figures just released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that domestic overnight tourism losses reached $17.7 billion (down 45%) at the end of June 2020. May improved slightly on April due to easing of lockdown measures – but these measures subsequently tightened up again in some states.
States with few active Covid-19 cases and less reliance on interstate travel had better results for June 2020. For example, Western Australia and South Australia had only 15% and 39% fewer overnight visitors respectively. The drop for Australia as a whole was 45%. Early data for domestic overnight trips for July and August 2020 suggests numbers will continue to be well down in these months.
Qantas, meanwhile, has confirmed it will help maintain critical transport links to key regional cities, following Virgin Australia’s decision to exit a number of markets.
Subject to state borders opening (that proviso again!), Qantas will launch new flights from Brisbane to Port Macquarie. The flights will be operated up to five times per week with the airline’s Q400 turboprop aircraft, adding more than 700 seats on the route each week.
Qantas will also look to backfill capacity on other regional routes, with flights added in line with demand and an easing of travel restrictions.
QantasLink chief executive John Gissing said the new flights would help maintain travel options for regional communities and drive much-needed tourism.
“As the national carrier, and the country’s largest regional airline, we have an important role to play in driving tourism and helping the industry get back on its feet,” Gissing said.
Written by Peter Needham
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