Qantas assists Relief efforts across Asia

Qantas said today that in the wake of the earthquake and series of tsunamis that have devastated South East Asia, it had:

- continued to operate its daily 747 services to Bangkok, and its regular services to Indonesia and India;

- sent Qantas staff to Phuket to assist with relief efforts;

- operated a special 767 flight to Phuket at 1100 today, to bring travellers home to Australia. This flight will accept customers holding any ticket, regardless of which airline they have booked with, and will depart Phuket at 1840 local time, flying non-stop to Sydney and arriving at 0745 tomorrow. Qantas General Manager of Aviation Health Services, Dr Ion Morrison, and Qantas Nurse Robyn Noble travelled on today’s flight to Phuket to assist the injured on the ground and on the return flight;

- arranged to operate a special relief flight to Male in The Maldives and Colombo in Sri Lanka tomorrow, carrying medical teams and equipment to both Male and Colombo and carrying passengers back to Australia from Colombo;

- offered free of charge travel to a team of volunteer doctors from Melbourne to Colombo on tomorrow’s flight;

- provided full refunds without penalty for customers booked on Qantas flights and/or travelling on Qantas Holidays packages to the affected areas departing up to 31 January, as well as offering the option of deferring travel or changing to an alternative destination without penalty;

- flown medical and charitable supplies free of charge; and

- announced that it would donate a total of $1 million to UNICEF, CARE Australia, Oxfam and World Vision to assist with their disaster relief efforts.

The Chief Executive Officer of Qantas, Geoff Dixon, said Qantas had been in close contact with the Australian Government since the disaster occurred to offer assistance, and the airline remained in constant contact to provide whatever capacity and help is required.

“We will continue to monitor the situation closely and stand ready to provide any additional assistance required,” Mr Dixon said.

See other recent news from: Qantas, Tsunami