The Qantas Airways Limited (ASX: QAN) share price will be on watch on Friday.
This follows the release of an announcement by the airline this morning.
Why is the Qantas share price on watch?
The Qantas share price could be on the move today after ramping up its international travel plans.
According to the release, both Qantas and Jetstar will bring forward the restart of more international flights to popular destinations from Sydney and operate regular flights to Delhi. The latter will be the first commercial flights for Qantas between Australia and India in almost a decade.
In addition, Australia's flag carrier airline will bring back two of its Airbus A380 aircraft earlier than planned. It is also in discussions with Boeing about accelerating the delivery of three brand new 787 Dreamliners, which have been in storage for most of the pandemic.
Qantas made the decision in response to the Federal and New South Wales governments confirming that international borders would reopen from 1 November 2021. It also expects the decision by the NSW Government to remove quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated arrivals to significantly increase travel demand.
In light of the above, all Qantas and Jetstar workers based in Australia and New Zealand who are currently stood down are expected to return to work by early December. This includes around 5,000 employees linked to domestic flying and around 6,000 linked to international flying.
Management commentary
Qantas' CEO, Alan Joyce, commented: "We know that Australians are keen to get overseas and see friends and family or have a long awaited holiday, so bringing forward the restart of flights to these popular international destinations will give customers even more options to travel this summer."
"We've said for months that the key factor in ramping up international flying would be the quarantine requirement. The decision by the NSW Government to join many cities from around the world by removing quarantine for fully vaccinated travellers means we're able to add these flights from Sydney much earlier than we would have otherwise."
"We hope that as vaccination rates in other states and territories increase, we'll be able to restart more international flights out of their capital cities. In the meantime, Sydney is our gateway to the rest of the world."
My Joyce also revealed that demand for international travel has been strong in recent weeks.
He commented: "In recent weeks, sales on international flights to and from Sydney have outstripped sales on domestic flights, which shows how important certainty is to people when making travel plans."
The Qantas share price is up 16% in 2021.
