Australians left behind on US tarmac petition government for help to bring them home

A group of Australians in the US trying to return home were in limbo after ‘nonsensical’ flight caps left them stranded before a last-minute save.

Thirty Australians who were “nonsensically” left stranded in San Francisco, “abandoned” by their home country after their plane malfunctioned, have been granted an 11th hour mercy.

The United Airlines San Francisco-to-Sydney flight was deemed “unfit to fly” on Thursday after passengers sat on the runway for three hours due to an apparent technical fault.

Strict flight caps initially meant the group, including Jack Reardon and Celia Mortlock, were staring down the barrel of choosing whether to wait next year for an available flight or pay “thousands of dollars extra” for a business class ticket.

Only 30 people are allowed to fly on each internationally arriving flight due to government-enforced flight caps despite planes being able to carry more than 200 people.

The group claimed they were left to fend for themselves and were told they couldn’t board the next flight despite the fact they had “already been counted” in the country’s arrivals for the week.

“Sydney’s daily quota is cited as the reason United wouldn’t let us all jump on today’s flight to Sydney, even though we have already been ‘counted’ as arrivals on November 27,” Ms Mortlock wrote.

“United and Australia aren’t budging.”

The group was saved at the last minute by a government decision, being told they could board the next Australia-bound flight.

Anthony Albanese Party has slammed the Prime Minister for the ‘nonsensical’ issue. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Labor leader Anthony Albanese said he rang the Deputy Prime Minister to tell him it would be “nonsensical” not to resolve the issue.

He said space had been made available on the next flight as a result of the call; however, a government spokesman confirmed they had been contacted by United Airlines on Thursday night and had finalised arrangements on Friday morning.

“It shouldn’t take the intervention of the leader of the Labor Party, or shadow ministers, to get individual Australians home,” Mr Albanese said.

“Why is it that the government doesn’t have systems in place to deal with these issues? It’s not good enough.

“There are more than 30,000 Australians who are stranded. This complacent government, this government obsessed with making announcements but not delivering outcomes, needs to do much better.”

Ms Mortlock said if the government hadn’t intervened, many would have been left stranded, possibly for months, like “Tom Hanks in the Terminal movie”.

On Friday morning, a government spokesperson confirmed that passenger caps had been revised so that impacted passengers could be accommodated on the next available flight.

Should affected passengers not be able to make that flight, the government would work with United Airlines to reaccomodate passengers on other flights in the coming days, the spokesman said.

Hey, @ScottMorrisonMP @MarisePayne @M_McCormackMP all that nonsense from your departments yesterday regarding helping #strandedAussies?  This failure appears to be happening live, right now, for 30 Aussies in San Francisco 👇 pic.twitter.com/XN5FzjgVrg

— Kristina Keneally (@KKeneally) November 26, 2020

Mr Reardon, who has been living in the US for two years, spoke to ABC News on Friday morning, saying the previous 12 hours had been “a little tiring … and a little confusing”.

“We don’t know exactly if we’re gonna get on another flight, it’s a bit of wait and see,” he said.

Mr Reardon said he booked the flight in August, hoping to come home to Australia “just for three months to escape the pandemic”.

He spent $US1100 ($A1495) on the flight and was prepared to spend $3000 to quarantine in Sydney, but it all went wrong at San Francisco airport.

“Everything was smooth from checking in, handing in my baggage, and then heading to the gate, everything was fine,” he said.

“We boarded the plane on time, and then, yeah, as we headed out into the tarmac everything stalled … Apparently there was some technical fault with the computer on-board, so obviously that’s an issue.

“Then they pulled us back to the gate, still unsure how to proceed. And then they announced that the flight was cancelled, so then we all got off the plane, headed to the baggage area, collected our bags.”

Jack Reardon is one of 30 Australians stuck in San Francisco after the flight he had booked months ago malfunctioned.

Mr Reardon said there was plenty of tension and uncertainty within the group.

“I’m currently on the waitlist for tonight’s flight … But whether I get on that is a question of the arrival limits,” he said.

“If I don’t get on that flight I’ll … give up a bit.”

Mr Reardon spoke to Mr Albanese on Friday morning, prompting the Opposition Leader to call on Scott Morrison to “fulfil his commitment”.

On Thursday, the Senate Select Committee on COVID-19 heard the stories of Australians still stranded overseas desperate to get home in time for Christmas, as promised by Mr Morrison.

“Australia remains the only country in the world with policies that are denying its citizens the right to return to their country. That is about as un-Australian as it gets,” Dave Jeffries, who is stuck in Canada with his family, told the Senate.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he was making ‘good progress’ with bringing tens of thousands of Australians stranded overseas back home. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Sarah Matray

In response, Mr Morrison said the government was making “good progress” on its commitments to bring Australians home but warned it was constrained by the quarantine capacity.

When Mr Morrison made his commitment to get as many people home before Christmas, 24,000 people had registered. Since then the number has increased to 36,000.

He said the government had helped repatriate 35,000 Australians since mid-September.