Qantas has canceled most of its scheduled flights from Western Australia to Victoria and NSW over the summer and will bypass Perth on its nonstop flights to London due to the state’s reluctance to reopen its border .

The airline said on Monday it would reorient its direct Perth-London flights until at least April 2022 and instead operate a daily Melbourne-Darwin-London service from December, when it expects that the Morrison government reopens the international border.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said, based on discussions with the Washington state government, he has postponed the resumption of normal state domestic flights to Victoria and NSW from December 1 to December 1. February.

“We know their borders won’t be open to NSW and Victoria until early next year, so unfortunately we had to cancel the flights we had planned on these routes before Christmas,” said Mr. Joyce.

“We will, however, maintain a minimum service for people with a travel permit, as we have done throughout the pandemic.”

Qantas said it had not changed its schedule for flights from WA to Tasmania, the Northern Territory and South Australia, and hoped to increase services to Queensland in the coming weeks by awaiting the easing of border restrictions.

The airline said it was in talks with the NT government and Darwin Airport on how to operate its non-stop flights via Darwin. If that is not possible, the flight from Melbourne on his Boeing 787 Dreamliner will stop in Singapore en route to London, he said.

Meanwhile, domestic flights between Victoria and NSW will increase earlier than expected, with Qantas restarting scheduled flights between the two states from November 5, rather than December 5, based on Victorian Prime Minister Daniel’s plan to reopen. Andrew posted last weekend.

Qantas intends to restart international flights to the UK, US, Japan, Singapore, Canada and Fiji on December 18-19, however, the Morrison government has yet to say whether the Australians would be allowed to leave the country by then.