Airline considers offering travel perks to vaccinated passengers

The incentive could be Qantas points, Qantas or Jetstar flight vouchers, or status credits for frequent flyers

Picture: (PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images)

An airline is considering offering travel perks to vaccinated passengers.

Australian flag carrier Qantas is mulling the move to encourage vaccination uptake in the country, reports Reuters.

The airline said points, vouchers or credits could be included in the incentivising scheme.

“As a large company that relies on travel to put our people and planes back to work, we're obviously motivated to help with the national vaccine effort,” said Qantas chief customer officer Stephanie Tully.

“We're still thinking through how this would work, but the incentive could be Qantas points, Qantas or Jetstar flight vouchers, or status credits for frequent flyers.”

Australia’s borders have been closed to nearly all travellers since the coronavirus pandemic started in March 2020.

The country recently formed a travel bubble with New Zealand, which means passengers can fly between the two without the need to quarantine.

However, entry could remain off limits to Brits until well into 2022.

Earlier this month, Qantas pushed back the restart date for international flights until December at the earliest, as Covid travel restrictions continue to bite.

Australia’s national airline had previously hoped to start flying overseas from late October.

The Australian government has predicted that international travel to the rest of the world will remain at low levels until the middle of next year thanks to a sluggish vaccine roll-out.

Vaccines won’t be widely available in the country until the end of this year, it said.

In the meantime, Qantas has had to get creative to attract passengers, launching a series of domestic sightseeing and mystery flights.

Its latest endeavour was a supermoon scenic flight.

One hundred tickets were available for the journey, with prices starting from A$499 (£280) in economy.

The flight, onboard one of the carrier’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, was a “flight to nowhere” from Sydney, coinciding with a supermoon and a full lunar eclipse.

It began with a scenic flyover of Sydney Harbour before cruising at 43,000 feet – the maximum cruising altitude of a Dreamliner – for elevated views of the lunar event.