Qantas has been forced to delay several flights between Johannesburg and Sydney at the last minute due to falling debris from SpaceX rockets.
The US government has warned Qantas about the risk of SpaceX rocket parts re-entering the atmosphere in the southern Indian Ocean.
But Ben Holland, head of the airline’s operations centre, has said Qantas has received little advance notice of where the rockets would fall.
Qantas has therefore had to delay flights between Johannesburg and Sydney.
Holland said: “Over the past few weeks we’ve had to delay several flights between Johannesburg and Sydney due to advice received from the US government regarding the re-entry of SpaceX rockets over an extensive area of the southern Indian Ocean.
“While we try to make any changes to our schedule in advance, the timing of recent launches have moved around at late notice which has meant we’ve had to delay some flights just prior to departure.
“Our teams notify customers of changes to their flight as soon as we know it will be impacted.”
Few airlines operate the route across the southern Indian Ocean, but Qantas has operated the service since the early 1950s.
The Australian flag carrier receives warnings specifying where the rockets will fall, but these can change at short notice – sometimes up until the time of a departure.
“Customers generally understand this is outside of airlines’ control and that we can’t fly in the area when the rocket re-entry is taking place,” Holland added.
“We’re in contact with SpaceX to see if they can refine the areas and time windows for the rocket re-entries to minimise future disruption to our passengers on the route.”
Shares in Qantas have dropped 2 per cent in Australia after it revealed the delays today (Tuesday 14 January).
