Going straight to the top TO GET ANSWERS BY MIKE BOWEN
QANTAS BOSS WANTS PERTH TO LONDON FLIGHTS BACK On Monday 13th of December 2021, West Australian Premier Mark McGowan announced WA’s hard border – which has shuttered most of the population, cut off from the rest of Australia and the world with good and bad consequences – would finally come down on February 5, 2022. While almost nothing can be certain in these times, Mr McGowan has signalled that only an “unforeseen emergency” could change this timeframe. Like millions of other Australians, it is a date that Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has been waiting eagerly to hear. While international flights had resumed in other Australian capitals from about mid-December, Perth will be the last to allow in overseas flights. In a one-on-one interview with regular Irish Scene contributer Mike Bowen in late November 2021, Mr Joyce said he hoped to be able to resume their 6 | THE IRISH SCENE
once highly successful Perth to London route by April. As well as the busy Dublin route, London offers direct flights into many other regional Irish airports. It will be an option that will appeal to the Irish community in WA and Australia as well as the general travelling public when making their plans to get back to Ireland to see family, friends and loved ones who they have been separated from now for two long and difficult years. – Editor I was totally confused and frustrated after receiving hundreds of phone calls and emails, all looking for clarification on the rules in travelling home, to and from Ireland. Almost everyone said they were too scared to plan or book flights because the media were sending out constant negative messages regarding flight availability due to lockdowns and lock-out laws. This overdose of negativity that was being pumped out by the print and social media was enough to send any sane person into convulsions.
