Qantas Group outlines customer and employee impact of Coronavirus-related network cuts
Latest News|Published 19 March 2020
The Qantas Group has outlined the customer and employee impact of a huge drop in travel demand triggered by the public health response to the Coronavirus crisis.
Earlier this week, cuts to 90 per cent of international flying and about 60 per cent of domestic flying were announced by Qantas and Jetstar. With the Federal Government now recommending against all overseas travel from Australia, regularly scheduled international flights will continue until late March to assist with repatriation and will then be suspended until at least the end of May 2020. As the national carrier, Qantas is in ongoing discussions with the Federal Government about continuation of some strategic links.
More than 150 aircraft will be temporarily grounded, including all of Qantas’ A380s, 747s and B787-9s and Jetstar’s B787-8s. Discussions are progressing with airports and government about parking for these aircraft.
Essential domestic, regional and freight connections will be maintained as much as possible.
Qantas’ fleet of freighters will continue to be fully utilised. Some domestic passenger aircraft will also be used for freight-only flights to replace lost capacity from regular scheduled services. There is no impact on Qantas Loyalty’s operations as a result of today’s announcement.
International network changes
The Qantas Group is making the following changes:
- All regularly scheduled Qantas and Jetstar international flights from Australia will be suspended from end of March until at least end of May 2020. Some flights may continue in order to maintain key links, based on ongoing discussions with the Federal Government
- Jetstar Asia (Singapore) will suspend all flights from 23 March to at least 15 April 2020
- Jetstar Japan has suspended international flights and cut domestic flying
- Jetstar Pacific (Vietnam) has suspended international flights and will significantly cut domestic flying
Domestic network changes
The Group will maintain connectivity to almost all Australian domestic and regional destinations that Qantas, QantasLink and Jetstar currently operate to. The 60 per cent reduction in capacity will come mostly from a significant reduction in flight frequency, but also route suspensions and postponing a number of new route launches.
The route-by-route detail of these changes can be found here.
People impact
In order to preserve as many jobs as possible longer term, Qantas and Jetstar will stand down two-thirds of employees until at least the end of May 2020.
Customer information
To avoid further inconvenience, all bookings on affected international flights will be cancelled and tickets can be held in credit for further travel anywhere on our network.
Agents are advised, all customers with a QF (081) booking (existing or new) for travel from now until 31 May 2020, are entitled to the following options:
- cancel and retain the value of the ticket in credit, and
- upon rebooking, Qantas will waive the change fee.
- for tickets expiring on/before 30 September 2020, an extension of ticket validity is available.
Authority number 623063 must be entered into the endorsement box to avoid an ADM. Please see here for further information.
Passengers with bookings on cancelled domestic flights, will be reaccommodated on other scheduled services, as per our standard schedule change process.
Further details on how we are responding to COVID-19 can be found at Qantas Agency Connect.