Bookings take off as airlines resume Queensland-Victoria flights

“Now with Victoria opening up, we have the last piece of the puzzle in place for domestic tourism,” he said.

“Last year the tourism economy was nearly $10 billion and a good chunk comes from NSW and Victoria.

“We are enormously relieved that our operators and, importantly, the 250,000 staff relying on the tourism industry can go forward with more certainty and confidence for the future.”

Mr Gschwind said the lifting of travel restrictions allowed the industry to recover from a year devastated by the coronavirus pandemic.

“We hope we can recover some of the enormous loss over the year and hopefully it sets us up for a strong 2021.”

Virgin Australia announced it would resume flights between Melbourne and the Gold Coast and Melbourne and the Sunshine Coast for the first time since March.

Virgin will offer more than 38,000 seats on flights travelling between Victoria and Queensland by Christmas, and travellers will be given the flexibility to cancel flights in case COVID-19 restrictions change.

“With more borders open, we can put more aircraft in the sky, which means more work
opportunities,” Virgin Australia network manager Russell Shaw said.

“We are already seeing a significant increase in traffic to our website and bookings between the two states, so we’ll be resuming direct services from Melbourne to popular leisure destinations such as the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Cairns.”

Qantas and Jetstar will operate more than 1200 extra return flights into Queensland from NSW and Victoria in the lead-up to Christmas.

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From Tuesday, Qantas and Jetstar will operate more than 250 return flights a week across seven routes from Sydney to Queensland airports. This compares with just 36 return flights a week at present.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said Queenslanders could expect to welcome a lot more visitors in the next few months.

“This is news that many families have been waiting so long to hear,” he said.

“We can’t wait to see a repeat of the heart-warming scenes in Melbourne and Sydney this week with families reuniting after months apart, this time in Queensland.”

– with Lydia Lynch