What’s new

3 January, 2022 update

If you’ve been waiting to travel to Australia since COVID hit, you may be wondering, “What is happening with the flights right now?”  Please read the article What’s my chance of getting a flight to Australia? for an update.

Current Restrictions

At this point, you’d be happy to know there are no restrictions for flights to Australia:

• no need to wear face masks on the flight
• no need to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or of a COVID-19 test
• no need to quarantine when you arrive in any state
• no need to complete a Digital Passenger Declaration

If you’d like to confirm this for yourself, see this Australian Government website.

However, each state can decide on their own restrictions, so before taking your flight, it is worth checking travel advice provided by the state you are travelling to.  You can use this ‘COVID-19 Restriction Checker‘ provided by the Australian Government.

Upcoming Changes

From Thursday 5 January 2023, if you are travelling from China, Hong Kong or Macau, you must take a COVID-19 test within 48 hours before leaving China.

For more information, go to the Australian Government’s State and Territory Information website.

September 16, 2021 update

Updates to the website

• The data from August has been processed and all charts on the website should now contain the historical flight data from August (and still includes past months).
• Every post on the website has been brought up to date.
• New posts added:
  • How to book your ticket to Australia (step-by-step)
    • This section includes links to two new tools to help you check if the flight numbers on your itinerary have been flying during August (or previous months)
  • “What’s new”

Update on flying into Australia

Unfortunately, it seems the situation with the flights seems to have gotten worse (who would have thought it was possible?!) – getting a commercial flight to nearly every Australian capital city has become more challenging.  The government as extended the halved caps until the end of October, which is terrible news for stranded Australians.

If you are desperate to return to Australia, a government-assisted repatriation flight (commonly known as a “DFAT flight”) is probably still your best bet.

On a positive note, Qantas has announced it would like to resume six International routes from 18 December (see this article for more info about the exact routes) and have started accepting bookings for these.  However, Qantas admits that it does depend on “Australia… [reaching] National Cabinet’s 80% vaccination threshold in December 2021” (see the updates on Qantas website).

We must remember, for many months many airlines have been running at a loss by flying to Australia – we should be thankful any are flying to Australia at all!

What can help the situation with the flights right now?

Airline companies: it is a tall ask, but could work you together with the government/airport authorities to reduce the number of overall flights to Australia?  It would increase the number of seats being filled, reduce your costs and reduce the cost of tickets which many Australians need right now!

Media agencies and everyone else: can you message out there that if airlines companies, the government, and airport authorities work together to reduce the number of flights, flights to Australia for stranded Australians can be more economical again for all?