Business groups call for national rules to end Covid-19 chaos

Business groups want federal cabinet to mandate a nationally consistent and predictable set of rules for managing local COVID-19 outbreaks.

Constant border closures and travel restrictions are causing widespread disruption in the economy. Picture: David Crosling

Peak business groups representing the travel, airline, hospitality, agricultural and retail sectors are calling on federal cabinet to mandate a nationally consistent and predictable set of rules for managing local COVID-19 outbreaks, given the severe disruption to services due to widespread border closures imposed by state governments.

The call came as the major airlines — which have endured more than 90 changes to domestic border restrictions since the start of the pandemic — were again clamouring to cancel or consolidate domestic flights amid cancellations and forecast lower travel demand due to the state-government mandated border restrictions imposed on Sunday after the northern beaches outbreak in Sydney.

Virgin Australia said that as a result of the high number of passenger cancellations and forecast lower demand on services affected by border restrictions, it had reduced some flight frequencies, particularly for services out of Sydney. The airline was also consolidating some flights.

Luggage from a Sydney arrival on the baggage carousel at Brisbane airport. Picture: Attila Csaszar

“State travel restrictions are continuing to have a significant impact on the aviation and tourism sectors and we’ve already seen more than 90 changes to domestic border restrictions since the beginning of the pandemic,” Virgin Australia said.

“As a result of border restrictions and a high number of customers cancelling their bookings, we have made changes to our forward schedule in line with customer travel demand, which includes reducing the frequency of Sydney services.”

The carrier said it would continue to assess travel demand over the coming days and would make further changes to its network schedule as required.

Qantas said that following travel restrictions announced by the Victorian government, Qantas and Jetstar saw a surge in bookings for flights between Sydney and Melbourne on Sunday. “Other routes including Sydney-Brisbane and Sydney-Adelaide are also nearly at full capacity,” the airline said.

But both Qantas and Jetstar had seen large numbers of customers cancelling their bookings between Sydney and Melbourne and a number of other routes from Monday onwards.

“A number of flights will be cancelled as a result,” said Qantas, adding it was seeing a high level of inquiry from customers travelling to and from Sydney.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce was unavailable for comment on Monday as he was involved in operational matters, a spokeswoman said.

Peak bodies including those representing retailers, farmers and tourism have called for a consistent set of rules to deal with local COVID-19 outbreaks. Picture: Simon Dallinger

Meanwhile, several peak lobby groups including the Australian Retailers Association, the Business Council of Australia, the National Farmers Federation and the Tourism & Transport Forum called on the national cabinet to meet urgently and work out a consistent set of rules to deal with local COVID-19 outbreaks.

“Australians cannot spend the entire Christmas and New Year season in limbo, with families and businesses trapped in a no man’s land of information and plans,” according to a statement from seven major lobby groups including Airlines for Australia and New Zealand, Restaurant & Catering and the Australian Tourism Export Council.

“Right now, businesses do not know whether they can get back up and running again and airlines don’t know what schedules to run. These factors are incredibly distressing and disruptive to people’s lives, but for businesses they are confidence draining and job sapping. No one is doubting that the health situation has to be contained and we need to ensure that local outbreaks are well managed, but the rules need to be nationally consistent and predictable.”