Qantas again drops capacity forecast

Qantas has announced it will cut its planned domestic flight capacity by another 10 per cent through to the end of March, due to Western Australia’s delayed border reopening. The decision means that Qantas’ overall domestic capacity forecast for Q1 of the 2022 calendar year will fall to 60% of its pre-COVID capacity, down dramatically from the 102% initially forecast late last year. The new cuts are in addition to those announced earlier this month, when Qantas announced that it had been forced to slash flight capacity by over 30% through to March to “better match travel demand” amid Australia’s ongoing COVID outbreak. It also comes as Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan announced late on Thursday that his government would no longer reopen its domestic and international borders on 5 February as previously planned. McGowan said the decision was made due to the Omicron variant being far more transmissible than its predecessors. No new date has been set for the border opening.<br/>