Virgin and partner Qatar Airways offer help for Aussie evacuation
Virgin Australia has told staff it has offered to help get Australian citizens out of Israel if they want to leave, after the transport minister sought help from airlines and Qantas pledged to add two flights starting on Friday.
Transport Minister Catherine King spoke to the chief executives of Virgin and Qantas about contingency plans to bring Australians out of the conflict zone, after the attack by Hamas militants on Israel at the weekend and rising violence since.
Qatar Airways and Virgin Australia have a strategic alliance.
Virgin head of government relations Christian Bennett confirmed in an internal memo posted to a staff channel that Ms King had telephoned chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka with the request on Wednesday.
“With lightning speed support from both [operations] and our partner in the region, Qatar Airways, by the end of yesterday we were able to offer two options to the government, subject to regulatory approvals,” Mr Bennett wrote in the memo, which has been seen by The Australian Financial Review.
The first of those options involves a Virgin-branded Boeing 737 aircraft that had been undergoing servicing in Abu Dhabi and could rescue Australians from Israeli-neighbour Jordan’s capital, Amman. A land border with Jordan remains open, but it is unclear how many Australians have already or would be able to evacuate via Amman.
Virgin strategic partner Qatar Airways said it would also pitch in, as it did during the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021, with an “open offer” of planes and “working with Virgin” to look at all options, including flying to Tel Aviv.
“We’ll continue to engage with Canberra as to whether there is a wish to activate either option,” he said.
A Virgin Australia spokeswoman confirmed
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