Flight schedules take off as state borders reopen

Airlines have scheduled more than 1500 flights into Queensland in the week before Christmas as Covid-weary Aussies get airborne once more.

The Qantas Group is bolstering schedules in response to borders reopening in Queensland and Western Australia. Picture: Brendan Radke

The prospect of domestic borders reopening has sent airlines scrambling to bolster schedules with hundreds of extra flights to meet pent-up travel demand.

More than 1500 flights into Queensland are scheduled for the week before Christmas and Qantas will mark its return to Western Australia next year with 41 flights out of Perth on the day border restrictions ease.

Jetstar chief executive Gareth Evans said Qantas had operated just 100 flights into Queensland last week, a long way from the 700 services scheduled this week. “Next week we’ll fly 1200 flights (into Queensland),” he said.

Both Qantas and Jetstar were experiencing strong demand in and out of the state, with a fresh booking surge expected in response to the border opening.

“We saw a big increase in bookings when the opening date was announced and we’ll get another big increase now that it’s actually happened,” Mr Evans said.

“People throughout this (pandemic) have wanted certainty and now they’ve got certainty.”

Similarly, Virgin Australia operated only 48 weekly flights into Queensland from NSW, the ACT and Victoria as borders shut. Next week, that number will rise to more than 300 in response to a 500 per cent increase in bookings.

Mr Evans said the 1200 flights scheduled by Qantas and Jetstar would get the airlines to about 80 per cent of pre-pandemic flight numbers into Queensland.

“There’ll be more added as we go into the New Year,” he said. Network-wide, Qantas did not expect to make a full domestic recovery until WA reopened.

Mark McGowan on Monday outlined plans to ease WA’s hard border with other states on February 5, with international and domestic travellers no longer required to quarantine on arrival.

With the reopening date now set, Qantas and Virgin spent Monday reorganising schedules which had assumed WA would be back in business from late ­January. With demand expected to be sky-high on February 5, Qantas is offering 41 services in and out of Perth on the day, almost back to its pre-pandemic timetable. Fourteen of those would operate between Sydney and Perth, with the remainder going to Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart and Darwin.

Late on Monday afternoon, many of the cheapest fares on the routes had already been snapped up in a clear demonstration of the “pent-up travel demand” airline executives have been spruiking.

Although the holidays typically come with blackout periods for discount fares, Virgin and Rex say they will remain on sale throughout the busiest time of the year.  

“It’s a monumental day for Australians and we’re delighted to help travellers right across the country reunite with loved ones, friends and family or finally visit that dream holiday destination over the summer period and into 2022,” Virgin chief commercial officer Dave Emerson said.

Earlier this month, The Australian reported Virgin’s passenger revenues fell more than 70 per cent for the financial year ending June as the pandemic raged.

The airline, acquired by American private equity firm Bain Capital in November 2020, ended the year with an underlying loss of $76.8m after slashing costs by restructuring and making significant numbers of staff redundant.

It’s international sales fell from $966.2m to just $8m.