Qantas to divert international flights to Avalon if quarantine hub housing goes ahead

Our country’s biggest airline could soon be landing jets at Avalon if a purpose-built quarantine housing hub gets the go ahead on airport land.

Qantas is set to land international flights at Avalon airport if the proposed quarantine hub housing goes ahead.

The country’s biggest airline Qantas could land international flights at Avalon Airport, rather than Tullamarine if a purpose-built quarantine hub was developed on the site near Geelong.

Qantas told the Sunday Herald Sun it had the capacity to fly its international services into Avalon “if these proposed facilities come online”.

With both the state’s major airports in the mix as potential new quarantine centres, it is up to the state government to ­decide which — if either — site is suitable for hundreds of self-contained cabins.

It’s understood several locations are being considered.

While both airports have room for the cabins on their expansive grounds, Melbourne Airport has far more infrastructure and is currently the home of Qantas as well as other international airlines.

But Avalon chief executive Justin Giddings said that should not stop his airport, near Geelong, becoming a quarantine hub and has stressed it could get moving on the project quickly.

Avalon is owned by the Linfox Group, run by trucking magnate Lindsay Fox.

“If we’re successful (in our bid), I would imagine some international flights would come directly into Avalon once they start flying again — mainly the airlines we already have, Air Asia and Citilink, but there may be some others (international airlines) that come across to us,” Mr Giddings said.

“And we would probably do a lot of the charters that are coming in, flights where the government or someone else directly charters an aircraft to bring people back (from overseas) or for international students … and, of course, there’s also no reason why people couldn’t fly to Tullamarine and be bussed down to Avalon.”

Melbourne Airport said while it had much land available for quarantine cabins, a lot of work would need to be done to see if it was suitable.

He said the driving distance between Melbourne Airport and Avalon was about an hour, which was similar to that of between Darwin Airport and the Howard Springs quarantine hub in the Northern Territory, which was being used as a model by the State Government.

It was not yet known what the cost of building and running a dedicated quarantine at Avalon would be, Mr Giddings said.

“That’s probably a number of weeks away,” he said.

The Australian Boarding Schools Association told the Sunday Herald Sun the Victorian Government was looking favourably at “the Howard Springs model” of self-contained cabins or huts for international school students, with a view to implementing a ‘hub’ system similar to that of the AFL for its football players and staff.

Melbourne Airport said while it had a large amount of land available for quarantine cabins, a lot of work would need to be undertaken to determine whether a facility to the government’s standards could be developed on the site, what approvals were needed from Federal and State Governments, and in what time frame the project could be delivered.