Australia's Qantas Airways has brought forward its plan to start flights between the country's two largest cities Sydney and Melbourne by almost a month to 5 November, based on moves to ease Covid-19 lockdowns in the cities.
Qantas had planned to restart flights on what is the country's busiest domestic route from 1 December.
International flights are still on track to gradually restart from 18 December, when Australia is expected to have given 80pc of its eligible population two doses of vaccines against the coronavirus, Qantas said. But the airline is sticking with plans to temporarily reroute its flagship Perth-London service until at least April 2022 because of tighter border rules imposed by the Western Australia state government.
Qantas is in discussions with the Northern Territory government and Darwin airport to assess operating the direct London flight from Darwin during this time.
The lockdown in Sydney since the end of June helped send Australian jet fuel demand in July to its lowest level in five months, a sharp decline from previous months when consumption was above 70pc of pre-Covid-19 levels.
