Coronavirus: Private jet home for wealthy Christmas Island evacuees
When evacuees complete 14 days of coronavirus quarantine on Christmas Island, one family will not board the plane home.
When Australian evacuees from Wuhan complete 14 days of coronavirus quarantine at the Christmas Island detention centre on Monday, one family among them will not board a government plane home.
Company director Bei Chu, 37, and her husband Kaitang Wang will already be somewhere over the Indian Ocean with their two daughters in a Gulfstream private jet. The wood panelling and cream leather seats of the JetCity chartered Gulfstream IV will be a big change from the clean but humble accommodation in the detention centre over the past fortnight. There, metal chairs and tables were long ago welded to the floor so detainees could not use them as weapons.
Ms Chu, Mr Wang and their children are scheduled to leave an hour before the first of three government charters that will stop to refuel in the iron ore town of Port Hedland, then make stops in various capital cities to get evacuees home. The Chu-Wang family will instead fly direct to Sydney, the headquarters of property developer Greaton Holdings where Ms Chu is listed in ASIC documents as a director since 2014.
One of the company’s latest projects is a W Hotel at Darling Harbour. The Weekend Australian has been told Mr Wang, Ms Chu and their children waited out their 14-day quarantine period with humility. Until word of their chartered 10-seater jet emerged on Friday, none of their neighbours in quarantine knew they were potentially wealthy enough to buy up big chunks of the island where they have been detained since their rescue from Wuhan.
A source in the detention centre said the family’s story underscored the truth of the predicament for Australians in Wuhan as the coronavirus pandemic took hold: money was no help for those trapped. “It just goes to show Australians from all walks of life were entirely dependent on government to help them escape,” the source said.
If everyone in detention on Christmas Island remains virus free, 242 evacuees can leave on Monday and the remaining 36, who arrived 48 hours after the first group, can leave on Wednesday.
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