Qantas and Virgin Australia hope to resume their stalled flights to Tokyo’s ‘downtown’ Haneda Airport as soon as travel restrictions are eased, based on documents published by the International Air Services Commission (IASC).
The IASC – a federal government body which oversees Australia’s worldwide airline exercise, together with routes and airport takeoff and touchdown slots – had previously granted every airline a berth at Tokyo Haneda within the lead-up to the Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic Games, on the basis that flights started by March 29, 2020.
Qantas opted to have its Melbourne-Tokyo service transfer from Tokyo’s distant Narita Airport to Haneda Airport, whereas Virgin Australia selected to open a recent Brisbane-Tokyo route and forge a brand new partnership with Japan’s ANA.
The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent Australian border closure threw these plans into disarray, forcing Virgin to scrap its Brisbane-Tokyo inaugural simply weeks earlier than takeoff.
In two resolutions published today, the IASC notes that “as a result of COVID-19 pandemic impacts, together with present travel restrictions put in place by the Australian Government in March 2020,” both Qantas and Virgin Australia have “not been in a position to start the brand new providers to and from Tokyo-Haneda.”
Every airline has additionally “requested the problem of a decision extending the date for utilisation of the capacity from 31 October 2020 to 31 October 2021, or such other date as subsequently approved by the Commission.”
Pushback on restart dates
While the IASC has formally declared that the new Tokyo Haneda routes must be flown “from no later than 31 March 2021”,
That decision will likely be formed by the government’s own forecast of travel restrictions for 2021 in addition to every airline’s plans to resume flights between Australia and Japan.
Virgin needs Tokyo-ready planes
Qantas might reboot its Asian routes comparatively rapidly with both Airbus A330 or Boeing 787 jets.
Nonetheless, the choice by Virgin Australia’s new proprietor Bain Capital to scrap the Airbus A330 jets earmarked for Brisbane-Tokyo has left Virgin with none appropriate plane in its fleet – that means that Bain would wish to both lease or purchase jets to take up the route.
Though Virgin’s short-term focus is on domestic routes, the airline has previously maintained that worldwide travel stays on the to-do checklist.
Earlier than collapsing into administration in April 2020, Virgin flew Boeing 777 jets from Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane to Los Angeles, and had axed its Airbus A330 flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Hong Kong in favor of the brand new Brisbane-Tokyo route.
