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SINGAPORE AIRLINESAccording to InDaily, in January 2020, 559 international flights carrying 117,507 passengers passed through Adelaide Airport – creating a record. However from June 2020 to December 2021, the airport averaged just 2378 international passengers and 66 international flights a month –  and it seems that the dire situation might not turn around until the end of 2024 – or even later.

The war in Ukraine will only add to the lack of confidence experienced by SA travellers.

New Adelaide Airport managing director, Brenton Cox,  faces the challenge of developing new routes and winning back Emirates, Air New Zealand, China Southern, Cathay Pacific and Jetstar (international).

Of the nine international flights that arrived recently, five were from Singapore Airlines, three were from Qatar Airways, and one was from Malaysia Airlines.
Qantas does not directly operate international flights through Adelaide, simply because it’s not commercially viable for us, a spokesperson said when Qatar started services. At that time, the national carrier did, however, offer partner Emirates and Jetstar flights to Bali.

Qatar Airways

Qatar Airways

Cox told InDaily he is anticipating the return of Air New Zealand around July if New Zealand’s border rules are eased, while the airport would be working closely with Jetstar to open up the Adelaide to Bali market. He said opening direct flights from Adelaide to Fiji, Japan, and the United States remains a “medium-term” aspiration.

“We’ve been incredibly well served with Singapore and Qatar who have been there throughout the worst of the pandemic and bringing back – under the cap – all of those travellers over the course of the last two years,” he said.

“Malaysia has been fantastic as well, they’ve been less regular but have run some more ad hoc services, and once some of those border rules on the KL (Kuala Lumpur) end open up a bit more, we’re hoping to rebuild those services.

“Where it gets a bit more challenging is China Southern and Cathay [Pacific] because China and Hong Kong have quite hard border rules that are reported to continue to be in place for quite some time, so we’ll just have to see through all of that.” Hong Kong is currently going through a significant COVID outbreak.

There seems little chance of luring Emirates back to Adelaide. The airline pulled out indefinitely in 2020 after moving from a 777-300 to a smaller 200 in a bid to make money from a market that the arrival of daily Qatar flights in 2016 had seriously diluted. Qatar resumed services to Adelaide post-COVID in August 2020. The South Australian capital became the airline’s fifth destination in Australia to resume flights. At that time, Qatar was the only international carrier currently servicing five major cities in Australia.

 

 

Written by: Ian McIntosh

 

 

 

 

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