Airlines unlikely to fly unvaccinated passengers to Australia

On Monday, November 1st, New South Wales and Victoria will reopen their borders for international, quarantine-free travel for fully vaccinated Australians.

Though, as The Guardian report, most international airlines who fly to Australia will likely only accept vaccinated passengers, with some larger carriers capping their allocation of vaccinated passengers at zero.

Airlines are considering the logistical and commercial viability of selling tickets to unvaccinated travellers, in view of New South Wales and Victoria’s scaled back hotel quarantine capacities for unvaccinated passengers.New South Wales will accept 210  unvaccinated passengers a week, and Victoria 250.

Unvaccinated passenger caps is modeled off the broader passenger cap system introduced in July 2020. States will set their own hotel quarantine limited, and the commonwealth will communicate passenger allowances to individual airlines for each service.

Some airlines have been allocated small caps — like four unvaccinated passengers per flight — whilst others have been capped at zero.

Several airlines are considering either returning their cap allowances, or combining their set cap on to one weekly flight solely for unvaccinated passengers.

“No carrier will get a total allocation for unvaccinated passengers across a week that would add up to be sufficient to support a commercially viable flight for just that unvaccinated cohort, says Barry Abrams, the executive director of the Board of Airline Representatives of Australia. “They’re waiting to see what other airlines do, to see if they can roll their allocations across a week into one service.

“It may not be worth it for some, and they may consider handing back their allowance to go back into the pool of spots for other airlines,” Abrams added.

Ahead of international travel restarting, several airlines have announced that they will accept only fully-vaccinated travellers, including Quantas, Emirates, and Singapore airlines.

Whilst others, like Etihad and Cathay Pacific, direct unvaccinated passengers to make their booking via email.

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