After nearly 400 days of travel restrictions, Qantas and Jetstar celebrated the opening of the trans-Tasman travel bubble today. More aircraft are being deployed and 630 Qantas and Jetstar employees are returning to work.
Today (April 19, 2021), Qantas and Jetstar celebrated the opening of the trans-Tasman bubble which will allow quarantine-free travel after nearly 400 days of travel restrictions. Aircraft are rejoining the carriers’ fleets and 630 Qantas and Jetstar employees are coming back to work. Qantas and Jetstar can now resume regular flights between Australia and New Zealand with the opening of the two-way trans-Tasman bubble. The company is resuming flights to all pre-pandemic destinations in New Zealand across 15 routes. Additionally, Qantas started a new route between the Gold Coast and Auckland, marking the airline’s first international flight from Gold Coast Airport. On Monday, the airlines operated a total of 29 flights between Australian and New Zealand, and will now operate around 200 flights weekly.
Speaking from Sydney International Airport today, Qantas Group’s CEO, Alan Joyce, said,
“Quarantine-free travel has been almost 400 days in the making. Reopening these flights across the Tasman is a very important milestone in the recovery from the pandemic for Australia and New Zealand but also aviation and tourism. The opening of the two-way bubble is fantastic for the family and friends who are reuniting after so long apart and for the many jobs which are so heavily dependent on tourism. It means we’ll be able to get more planes back in the sky and more of our people back to work.
“New Zealand was Australia’s second biggest source of international visitors before the pandemic. Today, it’s about to go straight to number one. We’ve seen strong demand since the bubble was announced, with tens of thousands of bookings made in the first few days. We’ve also added more flights to Queenstown to meet expected demand during the peak ski season.”
Today, Qantas also celebrated the reopening of two First lounges in Sydney and Melbourne, as well as their International Lounge in Brisbane. The two First lounges will be open to Platinum One, Platinum and Gold frequent flyers, along with Business Class guests and Qantas Club members flying on the Tasman routes, until the other international lounges reopen. For the first three days of the Tasman bubble flights, Qantas Frequent Flyer has made all seats across Qantas and Jetstar available for booking as ‘Classic Flight Rewards’ and will also make 50 percent more Classic Reward seats available on the routes through 2021. Additionally, the airline’s ‘Fly Flexible’ policy allows unlimited date changes for flights booked before July 31, 2021, for travel before February 28, 2022.
Source: Qantas