Coronavirus NT: Virgin Australia suspends all flights to the Northern Territory

BREAKING: Virgin Australia has suspended all of its services to Darwin and the rest of Northern Territory

Virgin Australia has cut its flights to the Territory as a result of coronavirus

AIRLINE carrier Virgin Australia has suspended all of its services to the Northern Territory.

Flights to Darwin, Alice Springs and Yulara have been suspended as the airline reduces its capacity by 90 per cent.

Virgin Australia today announced they will suspend 8000 jobs while Tigerair will ground their entire fleet.

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Virgin announced drastic cuts to their fleet, extending domestic capacity reduction from 50 per cent to 90 per cent – meaning only 10 per cent of their flights will continue across the country.

The airline’s budget carrier, Tigerair Australia, will ground all their domestic services effective immediately.

The airline announced they will also be suspending 8000 jobs, a “dramatic step” the airline needed to take in response to the coronavirus outbreak and market conditions.

NT Tourism Minister Lauren Moss said on local radio she was looking to make sure services in and out of the NT were not completely cut.

“It’s much harder to build from nothing if we do lose those services,” she said.

“At present I don’t think there are any guarantees so we are working as hard as we can to try and get guarantees around those bare minimum services.”

Virgin Australia CEO and Managing Director Paul Scurrah said the decision to suspend 8 per cent of the airline’s workforce was in response to the federal and state governments’ latest travel advice.

Virgin will continue to operate near daily services to 17 Australian destinations for the purpose of transporting essential services, critical freight and logistics.

Flights will be suspended to 19 Australian destinations from midnight March 27 to June 14 2020.

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