London to Perth

Confusion reigns on the Qantas international routes.

The airline was expected to restart its daily non-stop 17hr service between Perth and London from 27 March.  Other routes and airline carriers were supposed to follow.  All has been stopped by a ruling from Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan suspending reopening the borders due to the Omicron variant.  

“It would be irresponsible and reckless for the State Government to ignore the facts and ignore the reality of the situation playing out on the east coast”, he said.

“Allowing a wave of Omicron cases to fly straight into Perth from 5 February, with no testing, no quarantine, and no public health measures would cause a flood of the disease across our state”.

Qantas has been using Darwin as an alternative link airport where the flight time is one hour less.  The routing is not attractive from a commercial point of view, the Northern Australia capital having a population of around 40,000 as against the Perth figure of just over two million.

BTN Editor-in-Chief Malcolm Ginsberg flew Qantas London – Perth – Sydney for the IATA annual conference (See BTN 11 June 2018 Qantas Boomerang Route).  Retired Editor Richard Cawthorne was also in the city 2018, visiting his family.  It proved to be the last time as things stand due to Covid-19 restrictions (See BTN 19 February 2018 ON TOUR: Perth Western Australia).   Darwin was the subject of a visit (See BTN 16 April 2018 ON TOUR: Newcastle and Darwin).

www.qantas.com

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