Planes to fly empty into Australia as international arrivals Covid cap bites

Stranded Australians bracing for their flights home to be cancelled are furious at the prospect of having to join the bottom of the queue for government assistance to return, as international airlines are told they can only allow as few as five passengers on to their planes to comply with Australia’s soon to be halved arrival cap. Airlines have even been allocated “zero” passenger allowances for some flights, meaning they will have to fly empty planes into Australia. Airlines flying zero passenger flights will have to rely on carrying cargo and outbound passengers to make the routes financially sustainable, however some are expected to halt services to Australia entirely as a result of the new caps. Rather than cleanly halving the number of passengers each flight can carry, the new passenger limits, which airlines must comply with by 14 July, appear to incentivise airlines decreasing route frequency to allow them to group their passenger allowances into fewer, more financially sustainable flights. One-third of all flights into Sydney have been given zero passenger allocations, while the remainder will only be allowed to carry between 25-26 passengers. Sydney’s weekly flight cap will be halved to 1,505 from 14 July – the largest of any airport.<br/>