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Qantas has become the latest airline to see a slowdown in bookings, especially for international routes, due to the emergence of the coronavirus Omicron variant.

The Australian carrier said it was maintaining “significant levels” of domestic bookings over the Christmas period and the southern hemisphere summer, spurred by the lifting of lengthy coronavirus-related restrictions across the country in recent weeks that unleashed pent-up demand.

This momentum “slowed down in late November due to uncertainty about the Omicron variable but there has been an improvement recently,” the airline said in a market update Thursday local time.

Qantas said it had seen “very strong” levels of bookings for the new routes to Delhi from Sydney and Melbourne. However, it warned of a “significant drop” in booking momentum for overseas trips after the latest alarming type of coronavirus was discovered.

“The news of the Omicron variant had a clear impact on people’s confidence in booking international flights in particular, but we didn’t see a large number of cancellations. Many customers have strong intentions to travel if border and quarantine settings are right, and on the days The last few we’ve seen intakes get better.

Qantas said it had to adjust the restart timing for several overseas routes, including Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand and Shanghai, in response to the extended border restrictions and temporarily halted the resumption of flights to San Francisco from Sydney and Brisbane.

The airline said the ramp-up of its international capacity has been slowed by these and other factors, and now expects its capacity to be at the bottom of forecasts to be 40-55 percent of pre-Covid levels by the end of its operating period. fiscal year next June.

Qantas also announced that it has chosen Airbus as the aircraft of choice to replace the Boeing 737 in its domestic fleet.

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