Qantas launches ‘Mystery Flights’ as Australia extends global travel ban

Tourists who reserve 1 of the a few journeys on present will set their fates into the palms of the airline.

The one-working day outings, which go on sale March 4, fly out of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, departing on March 27, April 18 and May 1, respectively. Every single Boeing 737 flight will be constrained to 120 passengers and travel to a spot in roughly two several hours.

Attendees get pleasure from breakfast in the Qantas lounge at 7 a.m. — returning in the early night.

Tourists will not know wherever they are headed until eventually the airplane would make its descent to the mystery locale, nevertheless the flight path will appear on the seat-back screens, providing fliers a possibility to guess wherever they are headed. The flights will reportedly include things like some small-level flybys of essential landmarks en route.

The airline is giving a handful of hints on its site.

For instance, flights from Brisbane will offer you “the great getaway” for those who like country hospitality, gourmand foodstuff and wine and the excellent outside. Sydney flights will head to the tropics, producing it an perfect vacation for these who delight in “lunching on the seashore.” The Melbourne flight will be acceptable for followers of the wonderful outside, connoisseur food and wine and regional farmers marketplaces.

Customers will be specified more clues on reserving to ensure they pack suitably.

The all-inclusive deals expense AUD 737 (US$577) for economy-class seats and AUD 1,570 for enterprise.

“As very well as serving to bring extra of our men and women back to perform, these mystery flights are one more way to help tourism operators in regional places primarily, who have been hit particularly tough by numerous waves of vacation restrictions,” explained Qantas Group main purchaser officer Stephanie Tully in a assertion, referring to domestic condition border controls.

The airline very first presented thriller flights in the 1990s. Passengers would get there at the airport and be positioned on a scheduled flight to any place across the Qantas network.

In 2020, the airline supplied a 7-hour sightseeing “flight to nowhere,” which offered out in 10 minutes.

Australia has returned to relative normalcy because the commence of the pandemic, with the country reporting zero new locally transmitted scenarios on Tuesday and 9 instances amongst returned vacationers in hotel quarantine. In total, it has recorded 28,986 cases and 909 fatalities as of March 3.

The region locked its borders early on, with Australians returning from abroad pressured to quarantine in a hotel for two months. Australia has also imposed a ban on abroad travel, with these wanting to depart the place needing to get an exemption from the Office of Household Affairs.