More than 120 Australians stranded in South America arrived back home in Australia yesterday on a charter flight, thanks to an enterprising New Zealand travel agency led by an expatriate Australian, which arranged the flight and underwrote its cost to the tune of half a million US dollars.
The cost to passengers was less than $4000 a ticket, not bad in this pandemic era.
The charter flight carrying more than 120 Aussies touched down yesterday in Sydney from Chile. Another 1000 Australians are still stranded in South American nations including Peru and Colombia.
The story of how travel agent and Latin America specialist Victoria Keating and her small and dedicated team arranged the charter flights has been recounted by the ABC.
Keating, who moved to New Zealand from Australia nearly 17 years ago, runs X Travel in the South Island resort city of Queenstown.
“It’s been quite the roller-coaster,” she told the ABC.
“Getting the plane was difficult, getting the seats into Australia was difficult.
“We just really wanted to try and get as many people home as possible.”
X Travel underwrote the cost of the flight, USD 500,000 (AUD 632,000), which Keating described as “particularly scary … it’s a big risk to take but we knew that the demand was there.”
X Travel was organising the repatriation of New Zealanders from South America as long ago as October 2020, according to the New Zealand Herald. It’s an example of an astute travel agent converting a challenge into an opportunity, earning the gratitude of clients while generating business.
To read the inspiring story, with photos of the team and some of the Australian travellers back from South America, see the ABC News site here.
Written by Peter Needham
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