Virgin Australia welcomes the re-opening of Australia’s international border to all overseas travellers.
While the closure of Australia for nearly two years as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has helped protect communities, it has had an incredibly damaging impact on the travel and tourism industries. Re-opening Australia will help reignite these industries and connect Australians to their loved ones across the world once more.
Australia is renowned for holding its own in the international tourism market, due to the many vastly beautiful and uniquely diverse tourism destinations and offerings.
For its part, Virgin Australia will resume services between Sydney and Fiji on 10 March 2022, with a further ramp-up of short-haul international services across the network through April, May and June.
Virgin Australia will also continue to assess demand for international services and revise capacity accordingly.
In addition to recommencing short-haul international services and transporting passengers once again to the Pacific, South-East Asia and New Zealand, Virgin Australia also looks forward to welcoming back more services and offerings for Australians through its partner airlines including United Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Etihad Airways, All Nippon Airways, Hawaiian Airlines and Air Canada.
The majority of our partner airlines have maintained their connection to Australia throughout the most challenging circumstances and will continue to play a key role in transporting people to and from Australia for years to come.
Statement from Virgin Australia Group CEO, Jayne Hrdlicka
Virgin Australia Group CEO Jayne Hrdlicka said the re-opening of Australia’s border to all overseas travellers was the injection of confidence the aviation industry needed after a difficult summer period.
“As an industry, we haven’t had the summer period we were hoping for, however, in this industry there is always a point in which things start to turn around and today is that point,” said Ms Hrdlicka.
“It’s a wonderful day for our team members who are the face of our generous and hospitable country and I know they share in the excitement to once again have international travellers on board Virgin Australia flights, exploring all that our great nation has to offer.
“Since the announcement of Australia’s re-opening to all overseas travellers, we have seen positive trends in bookings across our domestic network as a result of increased consumer confidence. This will no doubt flow through to our short-haul international services which are due to recommence next month.
“Consumer confidence is also being buoyed by the gradual removal of work-from-home orders across our states and territories, and the recent announcement of the re-opening of Western Australia from 3 March.
“While there will continue to be some ups and downs throughout 2022, we are feeling really positive about the year ahead and will keep being flexible and adapting to the challenges that the pandemic presents us with.”
Edited by: Stephen Morton
