Qatar Airways has postponed its return to Canberra Airport again, with no new resumption date listed.
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The failure to restart direct flights as promised puts doubt on any return of Canberra to the international flight map.
Canberra passengers for the rest of the world will continue having to fly to and from Melbourne, Brisbane or Sydney on Virgin Australia and changing terminal. Incomers go through customs and immigration in the bigger airports rather than in Canberra.
As the pandemic eased, the airline said initially it would resume flights from Canberra on October 1 last year. It then postponed the date to early December. The airport hoped the airline would be back by April 1 this year.
But that possibility has now come and gone - bookings in April and beyond still don't give a Canberra option for direct flights.
The airport now reckons the international service will resume sometime this year.
"We know Qatar Airways is committed to Canberra and how important it is for them to connect to the nation's capital and the seat of government," the airport's Head of Aviation, Michael Thomson, said.
"We are confident we will see them resume services this year alongside other international flight services to our city.
"Our top priority this year is to connect Canberra internationally. We are focused on resuming services to the Middle East and Singapore and new services to the South Pacific and New Zealand."
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The other international airline which flew in and out of Canberra before the pandemic - Singapore Airlines - is yet to name any date for a return.
The airport and the ACT government have also been lobbying airlines in New Zealand and Fiji to open up direct flights to Canberra. Those discussions remain ongoing.
In October, ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr flew to the two countries for a four-day trade promotion tour.
"Direct flights between Canberra and Fiji could start by next winter with Fiji Airways expected to make a decision early next year," he said at the time.
Qatar Airways did not respond to a request for information on why it keeps postponing its return to Canberra.
The first two postponements were because Qatar and Swissport, which runs the ground operations, couldn't agree on the provision of a specialised tug to push aircraft.
But a lack of the right aircraft has also been mooted by people aware of the airline's needs.
One other possibility is that Qatar wants to fly to Canberra because the route gives it an extra flight allocation to Sydney from its hub in Doha (from Doha, it then connects to major airports around the world).
When the Canberra leg was running before the pandemic, the Canberra flight would stop for a short time in Sydney where the bulk of passengers would get on or disembark - but that extra leg to and from Canberra was often little used. On this argument, the Canberra leg was not lucrative in itself but it did give Qatar more access to lucrative Sydney.
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