Emirates has backflipped on its decision to suspend its Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne flights, with the carrier to restart services to the three cities next week.
The move comes only a week after Emirates suspended the flights for “operational reasons”.
Flights to Sydney will resume from 25 January, to Melbourne on 26 January and to Brisbane from 28 January.
“We regret the inconvenience caused to our customers in the period where we had to temporarily suspend our services,” Emirates said in a statement.
“The pandemic has made international flying incredibly challenging, and the dynamic restrictions and requirements implemented by the different state authorities in Australia had added complexity and burden to our operations.
“This led us to temporarily suspend passenger services while we engaged with various stakeholders regarding crew protocols and other operational details.”
The backflip by Emirates coincides with the federal government’s new requirement of a mandatory negative COVID-19 test result for those travelling to Australia.
From today, returning Australians and travellers must provide evidence of a negative COVID-19 (PCR) test to their airline when checking into their flight. The test must be conducted 72 hours or less prior to departure, according to Smartraveller.
On Saturday, Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne announced the government will provide a further 20 commercial flights from locations around the world.
The flights will be targeted to regions of most need and which are not currently met by regular commercial options, running from 31 January to 31 March.
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