Qantas to cut crew contact with passengers on China coronavirus evacuation flight

Qantas crew will put drinks and meals on seats before Wuhan evacuation charter takes off, to minimise passenger contact.

French citizens arrive and settle aboard an evacuation plane in Wuhan, to fly to southeastern France where they will be quarantined for 14-days. Picture: Hector Retamal/AFP

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has revealed some of the precautions cabin crew will take on a charter flight from Wuhan to Darwin, to bring home hundreds of Australians stranded in the Chinese city at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak.

The airline will provide a Boeing 747 for the flight, which is unable to land at Christmas Island because the runway is too short.

It is expected the federal government will make arrangements to take passengers via Darwin to Christmas Island, where they will spend two weeks in quarantine.

It’s been revealed passengers will be expected to pay $1000 each for their flights.

Speaking on Triple M radio in Melbourne on Friday, Mr Joyce said crew would don face masks and lay out meals and drinks on seats before the flight departed, to avoid direct contact with passengers.

“There will be a lot of government officials on the aircraft to help manage the passengers,” Mr Joyce said.

“There’s a lot of details we’re still going through but a lot of precautions as you can imagine are being put in place.”

He said he was “really proud” at the large number of employees who had put their hand up to crew the flight.

“We’ve had over 50 cabin crew volunteer which is enough to man it five times over,” said Mr Joyce.

“Qantas has been doing this for our entire history. In my time as CEO we’ve put flights into Cairo during the Arab Spring, we’ve put them into Thailand during the riots, we’ve put them into India during the terrorist attacks.

“We’re very good at planning these flights, and making sure they’re safe and secure into airports and places we don’t typically fly.”

As always with Qantas it was a case of “safety first”, he said.

“This is the spirit of Australia and Qantas feels we need to be there for Australians in need and when we need to get them home.”

Qantas remains one of about a dozen major airlines continuing to operate into mainland China with flights between Sydney, Beijing and Shanghai still operating.

A number of other carriers including British Airways, United, American Airlines, Air New Zealand, Lufthansa and Jetstar Asia have reduced the number of flights to China in response to falling demand.

Mr Joyce said load factors on the flights were being reviewed daily.

The Australian and International Pilots Association and Flight Attendants Association of Australia have both stated they were reasonably comfortable with measures being taken to protect members on services to China.

China has banned group travel out of the country in response to the coronavirus outbreak and prohibited transport from Wuhan City. Special permits have been issued to several foreign countries seeking to bring residents home including France and South Korea.