By Patrick Hatch
The federal government has warned travellers to not get excited about overseas travel despite Qantas putting international tickets on sale from July 1, saying there's no guarantee they will be able fly as long as Australia's international borders stay shut.
Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Michael McCormack said the international border will only fully reopen once COVID-19 is no longer a public health risk.
"Decisions about when international travel resumes will be made by the Australian government," he said on Tuesday.
Qantas is preparing for international flying to resume from the middle of the year. Credit: Getty
The Australian government has banned citizens from leaving the country unless they receive an exemption, which can include travel for business or on compassionate grounds. Mr McCormack said while ticket sales were a "commercial decision for airlines", Australian borders may remain closed by the middle of this year.
Qantas said its decision to start selling international tickets was based on its best projections of a vaccine rollout, and that customers will be refunded, rebooked or given travel credits if flights don't go ahead.
The airline's boss Alan Joyce last year said that a wide distribution of a vaccine would be necessary for quarantine-free travel to resume to destinations like the US and UK and would be a condition of travel, along with the possible need for a "vaccination certificate".
The federal government has also flagged possible compulsory vaccinations for travellers in its COVID-19 vaccination policy but it has not decided on its final position.
Qantas had previously suspended bookings to London and the United States until October, but has now scheduled flights to these destinations from July, showing optimism COVID-19 vaccines will be rolled out widely enough over the next six months to restart overseas travel.
However, services to Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan that were set to resume in March have now been pushed back to July 1, as the prospect of establishing COVID-safe "travel bubbles" with those countries evaporates.
A Qantas spokeswoman said the carrier had "aligned the selling of our international services to reflect our expectation that international travel will begin to restart from July 2021".
"We continue to review and update our international schedule in response to the developing COVID-19 situation," she said.
New Zealand is the only international destination Qantas is currently flying to. While major routes such as Los Angeles and London are back on sale, Qantas is yet to return destinations including New York, Santiago and Fiji to its network.
Even when the airline restarts long-haul flying it will be at a significantly reduced capacity after mothballing its fleet of 12 Airbus A380s super-jumbos in deep storage until at least 2023.
Most of its 11 Boeing 787s Dreamliners were also sent to storage in Victorville, in Southern California, but all except one are back in service operating either freight services or government-chartered repatriation flights, which in the past week has included operations from Frankfurt, Chennai and London.
Earlier this year, Qantas retired the last of its iconic Boeing 747s that operated on the Santiago and Johannesburg routes.
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