Back in January, our inner wanderlust seekers awoke from a year-long hibernation when Qantas announced it would once again start selling overseas flights.
After initially shutting down services in March 2020, the airline carrier said it planned to start selling seats to most of its previous overseas ports as early as 1 July 2021. That included the US, UK and many parts of Asia like Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan.
Unfortunately, just this morning, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce revealed not only has the airline suffered a staggering $1 billion loss in its half-year trading update, it is also pushing international travel back to October 2021.
"Throughout the pandemic, we’ve updated our assumptions on international travel restarting. Since the start of this year, we’ve seen: a huge surge in COVID cases around the world; new strains emerging; and a shift from ‘herd immunity’ as the threshold for opening borders to ‘fully vaccinated’," says Joyce.
"As a result, we’re now planning for international travel to restart at the end of October this year, in-line with the date for Australia’s vaccine rollout to be effectively complete."
Most of their international routes will resume on that date, including flights to London, Los Angeles and Singapore.
So far, three routes—New York, Santiago and Osaka—will return at a later date, with passengers able to fly to those cities with codeshare flights until then.
Joyce added that Qantas are "still targeting July for a material increase in New Zealand flights." So there's somewhat of a silver lining there.
He also revealed that the airline is in close consultation with the government, and if things change, so will their dates.
With the vaccine rollout already underway, we’re on the right track for an October vacay OS.
In the meantime, start holiday dreaming with our favourite under the radar destinations for 2021.
Image Credit: Sergey Pesterev