Federal Budget 2021: Qantas forced to change overseas travel restart date

Australian airline Qantas has been forced to make a snap decision about its start date for international travel following the federal budget.

With the shock announcement that Australia’s international borders will remain largely slammed shut until mid-2022, the tourism industry is in panic mode after being dealt the biggest losing card from the federal budget.

In a document that contains a grim warning that normal flights won’t resume until mid-2022, all eyes are on one airline that had pointed to an overseas restart start of October 31.

In February – during Qantas’ half-year trading update, the airline said Qantas and Jetstar international flights would make a comeback from October 31, instead of July, as it previously forecast.

From that date, most of Qantas’ international routes would resume, including flights to London, Singapore and Los Angeles.

RELATED: Aussie border won't reopen until 2022

Qantas has been forced to push back their overseas travel start date. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

Qantas had for months projected a mid-2021 resumption of international travel, but was forced to adjust the timeline to October in sync with the expected completion of Australia’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

However, after the federal budget’s assumption that the border will not reopen until mid next year – the airline, along with numerous tourism bodies – have been forced to negotiate plans to fall in line with the prediction.

“Inbound and outbound international travel is expected to remain low through to mid-2022, after which gradual recovery in international tourism is assumed to occur,” the budget papers read.

On Wednesday, Qantas announced they will move back its planned resumption of international passenger operations once again from the end of October to the end of December.

“We remain optimistic that additional bubbles will open once Australia’s vaccine rollout is complete to countries who, by then, are in a similar position, but it’s difficult to predict which ones at this stage,” a Qantas statement read.

“We will keep reviewing these plans as we move towards December and circumstances evolve.”

The airline said flights part of the trans-Tasman travel bubble will remain unchanged. Picture: Jack Harlem/Tourism and Events Queensland.

In the statement, the airline said the budget forced plans to adjust its international flight plan from end-October 2021 to late December 2021, and continue focusing on the domestic network.

“In the meantime, the Qantas Group will continue to provide critical repatriation and freight flights overseas, and support the recovery of travel at home. The resurgence of domestic travel remains the most important element of the Group’s recovery,” the statement read.

“We will reach out directly to any customers with a booking between 31 October 2021 and 19 December 2021, however recent levels of uncertainty meant international booking levels were relatively low.”

The airline said that all trans-Tasman flights are unaffected by the overseas plan revision.

A Qantas spokesperson has announced changes to the airline’s plans around international travel. Picture: Saeed KHAN / AFP.

Margy Osmond, from the Tourism and Transport Forum, said the budget's projection leaves the industry high and dry going into 2022.

“No timetable condemns us virtually to being the lost kingdom of the South Pacific when the rest of the world is opening up,” she said.

“We will see more job losses and we will see many many business failures.”

Ms Osmond added that a mid-2022 international travel revival "just doesn't cut it" for the tourism industry, which has been arguably the hardest hit amid the pandemic.

“We need to be able to prepare; I’m getting calls from international travel operators asking if we could have some certainty because we’d like to start making bookings," Ms Osmond told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

“But it’s becoming border roulette, everyone in the government’s got a different attitude about when the border will reopen."

While the vaccine rollout of having majority of Australian residents vaccinated by the end of 2021 has raised hopes that the country's tourism industry can recover, the tough times are expected to continue.

The budget’s portfolio statement for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade notes Deloitte Access Economics’ forecast that the nation’s $152 billion tourism industry is expected to be hit by a $98 billion loss.

Major impacts on aviation are expected to continue with international capacity falling by more than 90 per cent.

However, the nation’s success in beating COVID-19 and the effective management of the pandemic also make Australia an attractive destination to visit when the borders reopen.

- with Samantha Maiden