No Europe trips until the end of 2021: Holiday hopes dashed as Qantas CEO says flights won't restart to covid-hit countries until there is a vaccine
Qantas boss Alan Joyce believes international flights won't resume until a coronavirus vaccine is available.
While flights to Europe and the US may remain off the cards until the end of 2021, he hopes travel bubbles with closer destinations will be developed.
'With New Zealand it's a one-way travel bubble. Hopefully we can get that in both directions. That's a massive market,' he told the Today show on Monday.
'Kiwis were the second highest tourism market into Australia before COVID. We're hoping they there may be bubbles to Korea, Taiwan, Singapore eventually under the right circumstances. We haven't flown to Korea and Taiwan in decades but we'd put services back into those destination it is we could.'
Mr Joyce had bad news for jetsetters planning to head to Europe and the US in the next 12 months.
'Unfortunately with the levels of the virus in the United States and in Europe, we're not going to see operations to those destinations in any real strength until we see a vaccine being rolled out, which is likely being towards the end of 2021,' Mr Joyce said.
'So that's in our planning at the moment.'
More to come.