Qantas CEO Alan Joyce says there’s no reason for Australian borders to stay closed

Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce has hit out at Australia’s vaccine rollout, saying he fears the country may be lagging behind as the rest of the world reopens.

Qantas boss Alan Joyce has hit out at Australia’s vaccine rollout and subsequent international border closure, warning that a slow uptake will “leave Australia behind” while other countries forge ahead.

Speaking from the reopening of the airline’s flagship Sydney International Airport’s First Class Lounge, Mr Joyce stood firm on the October 31 resumption of international flights despite the government’s revision on Australia’s vaccine rollout strategy.

Earlier this week, Health Minister Greg Hunt dampened international travel hopes even further, claiming even after the whole country is vaccinated against COVID-19 there is no “guarantee” borders will reopen.

With Australia’s vaccine rollout being pushed even further behind schedule due to AstraZeneca now only being recommended for people older than 50, there have been growing concerns about what it means for international travel.

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Qantas Group CEO still has the airline’s sights set on an October 31 international travel reopening. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Flavio Brancaleone

However, Mr Hunt said having the majority of the population vaccinated isn’t a magic key that will unlock international travel again.

“Vaccination alone is no guarantee that you can open up. And this was a discussion that in fact I had with Professor Murphy in just the last 24 hours, that if the whole country were vaccinated, you couldn’t just open the borders,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Mr Joyce said that while the airline remains “flexible” on when and how they resume overseas flights and future travel bubbles, any setbacks on vaccine uptakes could “leave Australia behind” compared to the rest of the world.

“There should be no reason why we don’t open up international borders,” Mr Joyce told media on Thursday, just days before the highly anticipated trans-Tasman travel bubble launches across the ditch next week.

“We can’t fall behind,” Mr Joyce stressed of Australia’s reopening.

“We know other countries are ahead of us [with the vaccine rollout] … and cannot be laggers here and fall behind the rest of the world. We will fall behind economically and some sectors will take a hit. I think the government is aware of that.

“Anything that speeds up the vaccination in Australia is a great thing, and gets us up to the numbers we are seeing around the rest of the world.”

This week, Scott Morrison’s pledge that Australians would be at “the front of the queue” for COVID-19 vaccines was smashed by new world rankings that put us on a par with Botswana according to one measure and 76th out of 152 countries in another.

Qantas has reopened their Sydney First Lounge ahead of the trans-Tasman bubble with New Zealand. Picture: Supplied/Qantas

Israel has emerged as the clear winner in the race to vaccinate its citizens with more than half of its population already receiving at least one dose of vaccine, and more than a third having received both doses.

But Australia is languishing compared to other countries including those in our region such as Indonesia and Singapore.

According to Our World in Data figures Australia ranks second last in all the countries analysed and sits below Ecuador on a par with Botswana.

But the Morrison Government argues these figures are not up to date and the more respected analysis is the work of the Financial Times.

But rather than putting Australia at the “front of the queue” the FT figures put Australia at the 76th country in the queue of 152 countries where data was analysed on the vaccine rollout.

Mr Joyce said he stood firm on the airline’s ‘no jab, no fly’ policy - saying that 89 per cent of the airline’s frequent flyer members support the idea.

“We are regarded as the safest airline in the world...and we do think it should be a requirenment that people are vaccinated on our aircraft,” he said.

“We know it’s going to take a while to get confidence back.”

– more to come