A report by Andrew Curran in Simple Flying says that the Australian Government has reached a deal with QANTAS to run further repatriation flights over the southern hemisphere summer.
The news follows reports that tens of thousands of Australians remain stranded overseas, with affordable seats on Australia-bound planes extremely rare.
ABC’s AM programme on Friday said DFAT had organized further repatriation flights in December, with Paris and Frankfurt the two new cities on the departures board, adding, “DFAT has now organized two QANTAS flights in December, one from Germany, the other from France.” “Australians must make their own way there, and the cost of a ticket is about $A2,000.”
The report added all passengers must get a COVID-19 test no more than two days before the flight leaves and upon arrival in Australia, all passengers will go into a 14-day quarantine at the Howard Springs quarantine centre outside Darwin in Northern Territory at $2,500 per person or $5,000 for a family of two or more people.
A QANTAS spokesperson told Simple Flying that ten repatriation flights will run over the southern summer period, with three depart from London, three from New Delhi, two from Frankfurt, and one each from Paris and Chennai, with the arrival dates into Australia:-
QANTAS’ 787 Dreamliners will operate all services, and all flights will have strict safety protocols in place for passengers and crew.
A QANTAS spokesperson said, “We’re helping bring more Australians home,” in what some might say a rather patronising manner, as QANTAS is not providing these flights on a humanitarian, but on a cost recovery basis and it is reported QANTAS also being paid a significant fee by the government.
DFAT has 36,000 Australian’s overseas registered as wanting to get home, with about a quarter of those are considered “vulnerable”, that is, they are unwell, out of cash, or potentially homeless, with for many a struggle for them to get home.
The Australian Government cap on the number of inbound international passengers caused by the number of quarantine spaces available, has also restricted the number of airline seats available for sale on other airlines, but if a seat can be found, the price is often very high.
QANTAS said it doesn’t decide who gets the cheapest fares, but that hasn’t stopped criticism, with Alan Joyce challenged in a recent interview over allegations a passenger had to pay for a business class seat on an earlier repatriation flight, saying, “The inventory is made available to the government first.” “The very cheap seats, in economy, go to people in distress.” “They need to get home, they haven’t got the financial wherewithal to get there.” “Then it’s made available to the rest of the traveling public.”
Joyce added, “People are not seeing those cheap seats because they are being allocated through the High Commission in each of these countries, to people who really need them.” “I think you have to get the government to prioritize, which they are doing,” adding that he thinks the system is working fairly well.
An edited report from Simple Flying by John Alwyn-Jones
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