Coronavirus: Qantas in talks to bring stranded Australians home

Cabinet’s national security committee will consider a rescue plan to help Australians trapped overseas in partnership with Qantas.

Photo by Mark Evans/Getty Images

Cabinet’s national security committee will consider a rescue plan to help Australians trapped overseas by the global coronavirus crisis, and is consulting with Qantas to organise repatriation flights.

Scott Morrison said Qantas had committed to maintaining services for as long as possible to key regional hubs including London, Los Angeles and Hong Kong, while flagging special measures to help Australians stranded in countries that had sealed their borders.

“I’m particularly aware of the issue that was raised with me yesterda­y around Lima, where there are Australians who are in places which have already been cut off,” the Prime Minister said.

“The Department of Foreign Affairs and the Foreign Minister are bringing forward some matter­s for consideration by the ­national security committee.”

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the airline was working closely with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on plans to continue flights to specific destinations to get Australians out. “We don’t know where Australians are stranded around the globe and how much demand there would be for flights,” he told Melbourne radio station 3AW.

“DFAT does, so we are talking to the government about … where should we keep flights going when we stop international flights, which is at the end of March. We still have the aircraft, we still have the people, and if we can find ­locations where there are enough Australians to get them back on an aircraft, and the government believes that exists … we will do that.”

Australia’s borders were closed to foreigners from 9pm on Friday in an unprecedented move to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

As similar bans across the world cripple global aviation, Foreign­ Affairs Minister Marise Payne said there were “literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Australians overseas”, and warned there would be no “magic solution that works instantl­y” to get them all home.

“We are working with governments in countries right around the world,’’ Senator Payne told ABC radio. “And we are constrained in a number of places by the rules and the restrictions that those countries have put in place.

“In countries which are in effecti­ve lockdown, there are exten­sive negotiations to try to work out how we can get planes in and out, whose planes they might be, and how that process works.”

The stranded travellers include 5500 on more than 30 cruise ships, which are having difficulty finding anywhere to dock. “I can think of half a dozen locations right now where we are literally working bilaterally, government to government, to try and arrange docking opportunities for those vessels which do not have a destination, or a place to dock,” she said.

Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong said Australians who wanted to come home couldn’t be left overseas.

“We need a plan to help bring Australians home. We need the government to work with Qantas, Virgin or any other providers to help people return,” she said.

US citizens joined the scramble for flights. The US State Department urged Americans not to travel abroad under any circumstances and to return home if they were ­already abroad unless they ­planned to remain overseas.

More than 240 Australians in Peru are seeking government help to get out of the country, which has locked down its borders.

The federal government has urged Australians to try to book a ticket on a charter flight out of the country next week, which is charging $5160 a seat and is alread­y overbooked.