Airlines increasingly unlikely to fly unvaccinated passengers to Australia

Most international airlines who fly into Australia are likely to accept only vaccinated passengers, with larger carriers now considering whether it is logistically and commercially viable to sell tickets to unvaccinated travellers. Some carriers have had their allocation of unvaccinated passengers capped at zero. From Monday, when New South Wales and Victoria reopen for international travel and quarantine-free arrival for fully vaccinated Australians, the states will drastically scale back their hotel quarantine capacities for unvaccinated passengers. NSW will accept 210 unvaccinated passengers a week, and Victoria 250. Airlines have announced tens of thousands of extra seats on new services into Australia since the states announced an end to quarantine, but many carriers are yet to decide how or if they will comply with the new rules for unvaccinated passengers. It is understood that the new unvaccinated passenger caps will be managed in a similar way to the broader passenger cap system that has been in place since July 2020, in which states set their own hotel quarantine limits, and the commonwealth – which is responsible for international border management – communicates passenger allowances to individual airlines for each service. Some airlines have been given unvaccinated passenger caps of zero.<br/>