Qantas has today published some changes to its international schedule

Qantas has seen extremely strong bookings on its flights between Sydney and London, which commence on Monday 1 November 2021. More than 10 additional return services have already been added to this route for November, with particularly strong demand from Australians coming home in time for Christmas.

The Melbourne-London route was brought forward last week following the Victorian Government’s decision to remove quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated travellers, however demand for these earlier flights has been subdued. This situation is short-lived, as demand on this route from late November onwards is much stronger – leading to the decision for the restart date to be delayed from 6 November to 27 November 2021.

Victorians have responded well to the return of restriction free travel to New South Wales on Monday 1 November, with strong bookings on Melbourne to Sydney flights. 

The restart of most flights from Melbourne and Sydney across the Tasman have been pushed back from mid-December 2021 to 3 January 2022. This follows the New Zealand Government’s confirmation that hotel quarantine and limits on the number of arrivals will continue for people travelling from Australia.

These dates could be pushed later should these restrictions remain. Qantas and Jetstar are ready to ramp up flights when people can travel freely between Australia and New Zealand again.

The airline will operate a very limited schedule between Sydney and Auckland from 6 December 2021 (two return flights per week), which will largely be one-way traffic from New Zealand and will also carry freight. 

International flights to and from Brisbane are now scheduled to resume around six weeks later than planned with Tasman flights to resume on 31 January 2022 and flights to Los Angeles and Singapore now taking off on 2 February 2022.

These changes align Qantas’ flight schedules with the current projections for Queensland to reach the State Government’s 90 per cent vaccination rate target, which is the trigger for quarantine-free international travel.

Flights to other international destinations from Queensland will resume progressively in the months following. 

The restart of flights from Australia to New Caledonia has been pushed back three months, with Sydney-Noumea restarting on 27 March 2022 and Brisbane-Noumea restarting on 2 April 2022. 

Customers booked on cancelled flights will be contacted by Qantas or their Travel Agent and provided with several options, including rebooking to a later date, or receiving a refund or flight credit. They do not need to call contact centres.

Customers booked on Qantas flights to and from Melbourne prior to 27 November 2021 have the option to travel via Sydney.

For more information, refer to the Coronavirus travel update page for further information related to your customer’s travel, including Qantas vaccination requirements and our network.