Coronavirus border closures ‘creating ghost flights’

Queensland’s Premier has been challenged to take one of the near-empty Qantas flights that highlight the devastating fallout from snap border closures.

A Qantas Brisbane-to-Sydney flight with just six passengers on board on Tuesday. Picture: Alborz Fallah

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has been challenged to take an interstate commercial flight to see first hand the damage snap state border closures are doing to aviation and the wider business community.

Entrepreneur Alborz Fallah, founder of CarAdvice and car­expert.com.au, was stunned to discover there were only six ­passengers on his Qantas flight from Brisbane to Sydney at 8am on Tuesday.

The week before, Mr Fallah flew to Melbourne on a Qantas flight with just 11 people.

He said it was clear that confidence in air travel had completely collapsed as a result of uncertainty over border measures.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: Dan Peled

“Initially when the borders were open, the flights were two-thirds or half full but the more snap border closures there have been, the emptier the flights have become,” Mr Fallah said.

“I would have done at least 8000 flights in my life and I have never seen a flight as empty as that Brisbane to Sydney flight. I have been in cars with more ­people than that plane.”

When he asked cabin crew about the lack of passengers, he was told the flight would not normally have operated with so few people but for the fact the aircraft was needed in Sydney for scheduled maintenance.

“None of this has any logic to it, and it just saps all confidence out of you,” Mr Fallah said.

“If the state was a corporation, the CEO would have been fired a long time ago and the likes of (Victorian Premier) Dan Andrews and Annastacia Palaszczuk don’t seem to care about the effect their snap lockdown decisions are having on the economy of their state and the nation as a whole.”

Qantas declined to comment on the load factors being carried on domestic flights, but pointed to remarks made by chief executive Alan Joyce about the damage being done to the travel industry from snap border closures.

“People need to be able to go home, to move around the country, to get back to business,” Mr Joyce said last month.

“We can do that if we trust in the systems and the fantastic job Australians have done at following them.”

Motoring media entrepreneur Alborz Fallah. Picture: John Gass

In August, Mr Joyce wrote to the premiers, including Ms Palaszczuk, requesting “border harmonisation” as well as forward payment of government travel to assist Qantas through the COVID-19 crisis.

“It is clear that the aviation industry continues to be one of the hardest hit by the crisis and I cannot stress enough the seriousness of the situation in which the whole industry, Qantas included, finds itself,” Mr Joyce wrote.

Queensland Tourism Minister Stirling Hinchliffe acknowledged the sector had “done it tough” but said $750m was being invested to support tourism.

“This includes a multi-million-dollar fund to fast-track the recommencement of flights.”