Emirates to resume flights to Australia within days

Emirates will resume flights to Australia after working out how to meet tougher testing and quarantine requirements for foreign air crews, giving hope to thousands of citizens still stranded in Europe nearly a year after the Morrison government closed Australia's borders. The United Arab Emirates carrier blamed "the dynamic restrictions and requirements implemented by the different state authorities" for its decision last Friday to immediately suspend all flights to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Emirates is one of the few airlines still flying to Australia under the strict limits on the number of arrivals allowed in while the coronavirus pandemic rages abroad. Some states recently slashed the maximum intake by 50% over fears of new, more transmissible strains circulating in the United Kingdom and South Africa. New South Wales and Victoria also imposed new restrictions on foreign air crews. Crews and pilots made up 4808 of the 13,089 who entered Australia in the final two weeks of August. Emirates was conducting 19 flights a week between Dubai and Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and its decision to suspend the routes caused deep uncertainty for the thousands of Australians in Europe and the Middle East who have been waiting months to get home.<br/>