Less than a week after the United Arab Emirates Carrier cancelled all flights from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, Emirates has announced it will resume passenger flights from Monday.
Emirates has today announced that it will resume passenger flights to Sydney from 25 January, to Melbourne from 26 January, and to Brisbane from 28 January.
Passenger flights between Dubai and Perth, as well as cargo operations to all Australian points, will continue as scheduled.
The news comes in less than a week after the airline suspended all flights to its three major Australian hubs due to “operational reasons”.
Under the new Australian arrival limits for inbound travellers, Emirates will only be allowed to fill a fraction of its 360 seats on its Boeing 777-300ER jets.
Regardless, Emirates says is keen to serve the many Australians waiting to get home, and hopes that commercial and operational conditions will allow that to happen.
The Rules
All Emirates crew (cabin crew and pilots) operating on Australian flights were already mandated to take a PCR test 48 hours prior to the scheduled flight departure from Dubai.
With the latest adjustments, these tests will now be administered in their homes, and all crew will also observe self-quarantine in their homes from the moment of testing until their flight.
Combined with the hotel quarantine and tests on arrival in Australia, this effectively means that Emirates crew are in a “bubble” from 48 hours before their flight, until they return to Dubai.
Emirates said it was “grateful that our wonderful crew teams are very understanding and supportive, which has enabled us to quickly restart passenger services.”
Bringing Aussies home
According to DFAT, there are still 40,000 desperate Australians stranded overseas, trying to return to their country.
Last week, the national cabinet made a decision to reduce international arrival caps into the country.
The number of international arrivals allowed into New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia has been halved and now totals 4,220 passengers per week.
Here are the new arrival limit numbers:
- NSW – 1500 travellers a week
- Western Australia – 500 travellers a week
- Queensland – 500 travellers a week
- Victoria – no change (currently 1120 travellers a week)
- South Australia – no change (currently 600 travellers a week)
NT, ACT, and Tassie are working out their arrangements with the Commonwealth on a case-by-case basis.
The federal government say they are now working with Qantas to “bring people back from the United Kingdom, Europe, India and other places where vulnerable Australians are most in need of assistance.” With 20 special one-way repatriation flights to be scheduled across February and March.
Emirates said it “regrets the inconvenience caused to our customers in the period where we had to temporarily suspend our services.
“The pandemic has made international flying incredibly challenging, and the dynamic restrictions and requirements implemented by the different state authorities in Australia had added complexity and burden to our operations.
“This led us to temporarily suspend passenger services while we engaged with various stakeholders regarding crew protocols and other operational details.
“Following this engagement, we’ve made the decision to resume services with adjustments to our operations, so that we can continue serving our customers.”
It is expected that international passenger arrival caps will be reviewed before 15 February.
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