The outbreak of COVID-19 has had a severe impact on flights everywhere, including to Australia. It wasn’t just the virus that deterred travel; the response of governments everywhere to COVID-19 also had severe impacts. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Australia. If you go by flight timetables, you can still fly to Australia. But only a determined individual would try to do so.
Government regulations create logistical hurdles
The Australian Government is determined to minimize the impact and spread of COVID-19. Borders closed to non-citizens in March, and there is no expectation that they will re-open until sometime in 2021.
But even Australian citizens are finding it difficult to get home. Most airlines suspended their services to Australia following the COVID-19 outbreak. The airlines that continued flying were soon hit with a passenger cap of just 50 passengers per plane.
Australia’s airports also saw daily international passenger arrival caps applied. Brisbane Airport will only accept 70 international passenger arrivals a day, rising to 350 in Sydney.
That meant thousands of passengers instantly lost their seats on upcoming flights. The cost of tickets soared as airlines began selling the 50 available seats in their premium cabins rather than the economy cabin. It reflects an effort by airlines to minimize losses on their Australia bound flights.
The effect of these rules, all designed to keep COVID-19 at bay, was to make getting a confirmed seat on a flight to Australia that ran a very tricky business.
To top it all off, everyone coming into Australia goes into a mandatory 14-day quarantine at a supervised facility (usually a hotel). Quarantine is at the incoming passenger’s expense. Quarantine costs US$2150 for the first adult. A second adult costs an additional $700. There are further charges for children.
Multiple airlines are maintaining flights into Australia
Still keen to fly to Australia? Several airlines still fly in. They do decent business carrying cargo, and many want to maintain an international network, however threadbare. Passengers are almost an afterthought when it comes to flying to Australia these days.
The situation has been complicated somewhat by the effective shutdown of Melbourne and its airport. Several international airlines had flights scheduled into Melbourne Airport over August, but with the city under lockdown and curfew, very few of those flights are likely to operate.
Out of North America, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines are flying into Sydney. Garuda Airlines is maintaining a minimal service into Sydney from Jakarta. Cathay Pacific is flying into Sydney. Singapore Airlines is flying into Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, and is adding Perth back to its schedules.
Singapore Airlines matches Qatar Airway’s five-city network in Australia. Out of the Middle East, Emirates and Etihad have also resumed some services to Australia. Air New Zealand has currently suspended services into Melbourne but is flying to both Sydney and Brisbane out of Auckland. Sydney is also seeing flights from other airlines, including China Southern, Malindo Air, China Eastern, Xiamen Airlines, and various carriers from the Pacific Islands region.
Air Niugini and AirPNG are maintaining flights into Cairns from Port Moresby.
Notably, neither of Australia’s two international airlines, Qantas and Virgin Australia, are operating international passenger flights.
A quiet day in Australian skies today
Despite demand, current government regulations mean flight schedules are a far cry from 2019. Usually, the skies over Australia are filled with the contrails of international flights coming and going. But not so these days.
There are just seven international flights into Sydney today. That includes a United Airlines flight from San Francisco, a Singapore Airlines flight from Singapore, an AirCalin flight from Noumea, a Qatar Airways flight from Doha, an Etihad flight from Abu Dhabi, and Air New Zealand flight from Auckland, and a China Eastern flight from Shanghai.
The pickings are much slimmer at Australia’s other international entry points today. At Melbourne, there is an Emirates flight coming in from Dubai. Perth is expecting a Scoot flight from Singapore and a Qatar Airways flight from Doha. Adelaide Airport is handling a single Singapore Airlines flight from Singapore. Cairns Airport has an incoming PNGAir flight from Port Moresby. There are no international flight arrivals in either Darwin or Brisbane today.
That makes a grand total of 12 international arrivals scattered across Australia on Tuesday. It proves it is technically possible to fly into Australia during COVID-19. But significant hurdles remain before you are even allowed to board the plane.