Qantas Cuts 90 Percent of International Network Until September [UPDATED]

The Qantas Group has announced further cuts to its international flying, reducing international capacity by an additional 65 percent, to 90 percent from the end of March.

The latest cuts follow the spread of the Coronavirus into Europe and North America over the past fortnight, as well as its continued spread through Asia, which has resulted in a sudden and significant drop in forward travel demand.

The group’s domestic network capacity will also be reduced by 60 percent until at least the end of May.

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The Group has issued a wide-ranging booking waiver for customers wanting to suspend their travel plans. Customers with existing bookings on any domestic or international flight until 31 May 2020, who no longer wish to travel, can cancel their flight and retain the value of the booking as a travel credit voucher. This needs to be processed by 31 March 2020.

Customers who make a new domestic or international booking and later decide they no longer wish to travel, can cancel their flight and retain the value of the booking as a Qantas travel credit or Jetstar travel voucher. This applies to bookings made from 10 March 2020 until 31 March 2020 for travel before 31 May 2020.

If flights were booked through a travel agency or third-party website, customers will need to contact that website directly to make changes to their booking.

Qantas

This approach results in eight of the airline’s largest aircraft, the Airbus A380, grounded until mid-September. A further two A380s are undergoing scheduled heavy maintenance and cabin upgrades, leaving two of its A380s flying.

In response to strong customer demand for the direct Perth-London service, the existing Sydney-Singapore-London return service (QF1 and QF2) will be temporarily re-routed to become a Sydney-Perth-London service from April 20.

The start of Qantas’ new Brisbane-Chicago route will now be delayed from April 15 until mid-September.

Jetstar will also make significant cuts to its international network, including suspending flights to Bangkok and reducing flights from Australia to Vietnam and Japan by almost half. Jetstar’s daily Gold Coast to Seoul flight has already been suspended.

READ: 5 Steps to Protecting Yourself From COVID-19 When Travelling

“In the past fortnight we’ve seen a sharp drop in bookings on our international network as the global coronavirus spread continues,” says Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce. “We expect lower demand to continue for the next several months, so rather than taking a piecemeal approach we’re cutting capacity out to mid-September. This improves our ability to reduce costs as well as giving more certainty to the market, customers and our people.”

Typically, customers flying internationally will be offered an alternative flight via another capital city or a partner airline, or an alternative day. Disruption to domestic passengers is expected to be minimal given the continued high frequency on most routes.

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