Qantas plans to reopen domestic lounges from December 2

After an eight-month shutdown, Qantas will reopen all but five of its domestic lounges from December.

Travellers will have to wait a little bit longer for the Qantas Club at Melbourne Airport to reopen. Picture: Tim Carrafa

In preparation for a significant increase in air travellers, Qantas is reopening most of its domestic airport lounges in the coming weeks.

By December 2, 30 of the airline’s 35 lounges across the country will be open for business, following an eight-month shutdown.

These will include the currently closed Qantas Clubs in Brisbane, Hobart, Perth and Sydney, the Melbourne business lounge, as well as a number of regional lounges including Coolangatta, Devonport and Launceston.

Some lounges reopened on July 1 with significant changes for members, such as caps on the number of people allowed inside at a time, additional cleaning protocols and sanitising stations.

Gone was the self-serve food and drink buffet in the interests of hygiene, with an all-day hosted “snacking station” in its place, along with a tray service.

Qantas chief customer officer Steph Tully said they were delighted to be able to open most lounges in time for Christmas.

“We know how much our frequent flyers value being able to relax in our lounge with a bite to eat and a drink before their flight,” Ms Tully said.

“It’s another step towards returning the travel experience back to normal. It also means more of our people can get back to work.”

Lounges that will remain closed for the time being include Qantas Clubs in Melbourne, Canberra and Darwin, and regional lounges in Port Hedland and Rockhampton.

Ms Tully said they hoped to reopen those as borders opened, and more flights were added to the schedules.

“With Victoria continuing to do a fantastic job containing the virus we’re hopeful that restrictions will continue to ease and we’ll be able to open our Melbourne club lounge soon,” Ms Tully said.

Qantas is expected to be operating at close to 50 per cent of pre-COVID domestic capacity by Christmas providing state borders were open.

With Tasmania reopening its border to Victoria, Virgin Australia has moved to reinstate flights from Melbourne from November 27.

The announcement on Wednesday that Tasmania would reopen to Victoria from November 27 prompted Virgin Australia to reinstate flights from Melbourne to Hobart and Launceston, from that date.

The services will operate four times a week from November 27, moving to daily on December 14.

Virgin Australia will also reintroduce a twice-weekly service between Brisbane and Launceston from November 23.

An airline representative said they were seeing strong demand, and encouraged travellers to book early for Christmas and summer holiday travel.

An announcement on the staged reopening of Virgin Australia lounges is expected next week, when the airline emerges from seven months in administration, under new owners Bain Capital.