‘Devastating’: Dozens of new flight cancellations leave Australians stranded

PM Scott Morrison has foreshadowed a reopening of borders when vaccination rates hit 80% but the hopes of scores of Australians trying to get home before Christmas have been shattered by a slew of new flight cancellations over the next three months. Singapore Airlines delivered the bad news to passengers on Monday night as a fresh round of international flights in October to December were called off. With the lack of a firm commitment from government about when caps will be raised or removed, at least one flight into Australia per day over the next three months has been cancelled by the airline. The flights had been extra services placed in the expectation that a travel bubble between Australia and Singapore would be established towards the end of the year, as had been forecast as likely by Trade, Tourism and Investment Minister Dan Tehan during a visit to Singapore in July. Singapore Airlines spokesman Karl Schubert said the airline was doing all it could to accommodate disrupted customers but availability was limited by inbound caps. “Until we receive advice from federal and state governments as to when international arrival caps will be removed, we continue to plan our operations to Australia accordingly,” he said. “This recently resulted in a number of flights, which were scheduled late last year to operate from October 2021 onwards, to be cancelled. While sales on these flights had been closed for several months, some customers had purchased seats on these flights when they were first scheduled last year. We apologise for the inconvenience caused by these cancellations. While caps on international arrivals remain in place, we are unable to expand our passenger services to Australia at this stage.”<br/>