Australian consumers could still be waiting months for international parcel deliveries, despite the addition of thousands of tonnes of air freight capacity after the country’s long-awaited border reopening on 21 February.
When Australia opens its international borders, not all destinations will initially have enough passenger demand to support the resumption of freight-carrying passenger flights to Australia to pre-pandemic rates, meaning the delays will continue, Cargo Facts Consulting managing director, Frederic Horst says.
A backlog in the supply chain is currently contributing to delays and continued demand is keeping air freight costs high.
While companies importing and exporting goods use cargo freighter planes for international shipments, postal services largely rely on freight holds in the belly of passenger planes – which saw the US Postal Service suspend deliveries to Australia during the harshest months of flight arrival caps and reduced services in 2021.
Countries with strict Covid quarantine rules, such as China and Hong Kong, are unlikely to appeal to Australian tourists, meaning airlines will not have a reason to run additional passenger services, Horst said, so Australians are still facing months-long waits for consumer goods and parcels from Asia.
But Horst was optimistic that postage delivery times from the United Kingdom, the United States and destinations with open border rules may improve initially.
Horst said that “even when international flights to Australia increase, air freight capacity is still in high demand, so until supply chain issues normalise, things won’t be operating as usual”.
“People are going to be wary of travelling [to and from Australia], it’s not just a matter of getting in, it’s what happens when you’re there.”
Horst said it would take until at least the second half of the year, just before businesses prepare for Christmas shipments, for freight capacities and costs to Australia to significantly improve, noting that the International Air Transport Association (Iata) are only predicting a return to 2019 air service levels by 2024.
International airlines are operating about 20% of the number of passenger services into Australia compared to pre-pandemic levels – not factoring in Western Australia, where traffic is 1% – according to the Board of Airline Representatives of Australia (Bara).
Before the pandemic, airlines operated about 2,000 flights to Australia a week, with 840,000 passengers and 22,000 tonnes of freight, generating revenues of $38bn in 2018-19, Bara estimates. The same figure for 2020-21 fell to $6.5bn.
Bara, along with other industry bodies including the Australian Airports Association and the Tourism and Transport Forum, have praised the federal government’s announcement this week and remain confident they can begin to scale up services by 21 February, when all remaining visa holders who are double vaccinated will be able to enter Australia.
In a statement sent to member airlines on Wednesday, Bara said “the recovery in international aviation depends on a number of factors, some of which are outside the control of the industry”.
“Consumer confidence to travel with Covid-19 widely circulating in many countries will be a major influence.”
Bara also said the requirement for a negative pre-departure PCR test for travellers to Australia “is commonly cited [as a] barrier to international travel”, as well as the varied testing and self-isolation requirements across states.
“These differing arrangements will create confusion for international tourists about their obligations when they travel to Australia and across states and territories within Australia.”
Bara is also calling for state and territory governments to end mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine for unvaccinated arrivals, noting its burden on health resources when the virus is already circulating in the community, and the complexity the rule brings to international airlines.
“It is administratively difficult and expensive for them to operate two passenger groups.”
