Australian carriers gear up for Sydney-Melbourne reboot

Australian airlines have scrambled to reinstate capacity on the decimated Sydney Kingsford Smith to Melbourne Tullamarine route following the announcement that the border between New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria will re-open on November 23, 2020. Qantas (QF, Sydney Kingsford Smith) and its wholly-owned subsidiary Jetstar Airways (JQ, Melbourne Tullamarine) have seen a huge spike in demand for travel between NSW and Victoria. About 25,000 seats were sold across both airlines in the first 48 hours after the announcement, of which 17,000 were for flights between Sydney and Melbourne, and the remainder between Melbourne and Ballina, and Melbourne and Newcastle Williamtown. One-third of bookings were for flights in the first week of borders opening, highlighting strong pent-up demand for domestic travel, according to local news reports. Jetstar Group Chief Executive Officer Gareth Evans said: “Jetstar had around 1,000 bookings in the first hour alone, which is more than 10 times the rate of booking we’ve seen in recent months. Within hours of the announcement, thousands of people had booked flights, which shows us that domestic travel demand is very strong.” The decision to re-open was a drastically needed lifeline for the airlines as the route between Melbourne and Sydney was the busiest air route in Australia and the second busiest in the world before COVID-19, according to Qantas Domestic & International Chief Executive Officer, Andrew David. “On a busy day, Qantas and Jetstar would operate more than 100 flights per day between NSW and Victoria. During the lockdown, our schedule reduced to as low as one flight a day,” he said in a statement. David lauded the governments of Victoria and NSW for their “sensible, risk-based approach to borders”, but remained critical of Queensland and Western Australia, whose borders remain closed. From November 23, Qantas and Jetstar will again operate more than 250 flights per week across five routes between NSW and Victoria – adding 48, 000 seats between the two states – and plan to add more flights based on demand. At the moment, they are only operating about 10 return flights a day between Melbourne and Sydney (the only route currently operating between NSW and Victoria).