**Update: 09/26/20 @ 05:55 UTC – This article has been updated to reflect the current situation regarding flights to Australia as at September 26,2020**
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.
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Australia’s airports also saw daily international passenger arrival caps applied. With Melbourne Airport closed to international arrivals, Sydney Airport is accepting around 3,000 international arrivals a week, Perth, Adelaide, and Brisbane Airports are, or soon will be, accepting around 800 international arrivals a week. Darwin and Canberra are accepting ad hoc arrivals.
These limits 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 September, but with the city under lockdown and curfew, very few of those flights are operating. A handful are flying in empty or bringing cargo, and taking departing passengers out.
Out of North America, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines are flying into Sydney. Garuda Airlines is maintaining a minimal service into Sydney and Perth from Jakarta. Cathay Pacific is flying into Sydney. Singapore Airlines is flying into Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, and has added 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 were just seven international flights into Sydney on Sunday, September 27. That includes a United Airlines flight from San Francisco, a Singapore Airlines flight from Singapore, a Qatar Airways flight from Doha, an Etihad flight from Abu Dhabi, and Air New Zealand flight from Auckland, a Delta flight from LAX,and a China Southern flight from Guangzhou.
The pickings were much slimmer at Australia’s other international entry points on Sunday. At Melbourne, there was an empty China Southern flight coming in from Guangzhou. Perth handled no international flights on Sunday. Adelaide Airport is seeing a single Qatar Airways flight from Doha. Brisbane saw two international arrivals, a Qatar flight from Doha and a Singapore Airlines service from Sydney en route to Singapore.
That makes a grand total of 11 international arrivals scattered across Australia on Sunday. 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.
