• Qantas has unveiled a new initiative that will reward Australians who have had a COVID-19 jab with frequent flyer points and travel vouchers.
• The airline hopes the incentives could help the government’s effort to increase vaccination uptake.
• Facing the prospect of closed international borders until mid-2022 according to the government’s timeline, Qantas has been working hard to bring this deadline forward.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

Qantas says it wants to offer frequent flyer points along with travel vouchers and status credits to Australians who get a COVID-19 vaccine, as the country battles vaccine hesitancy and a resurgence of the virus in Victoria.

Australia’s national carrier said the scheme would function as an incentive scheme to boost vaccination rates, which could help it resume international flights before the government’s timeline of mid-2022.

The airline last year announced that it will require all passengers to be vaccinated when it restarts international flights beyond New Zealand.

Stephanie Tully, chief customer officer at Qantas, said in a statement that the initiative came out of the organisation’s stake in getting more Australians safely into the air.

“As a large company that relies on travel to put our people and planes back to work, we’re obviously motivated to help with the national vaccine effort,” Tully said.

“We’re still thinking through how this would work, but the incentive could be Qantas points, Qantas or Jetstar flight vouchers, or status credits for frequent flyers.”

Qantas has suggested it would offer 1000 Qantas points to people who get vaccinated when they are eligible to do so, with the incentive also available for those who have already received the jab.

Tully said the plan sought to assist the government in getting more people vaccinated, as hesitancy among several key demographics and a lack of perceived urgency hampers Australia’s journey to widespread immunisation.

“Qantas is a big supporter of Australia’s vaccine rollout because of what it means for public health, but also because it’s the key to keeping our domestic borders open and safely restarting international travel as well,” Tully said.

It comes after Australia’s Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly told reporters on Monday the federal government was considering incentives to boost vaccine uptake.

“I think we really do need to look for incentives, as many incentives as we can, for people to become vaccinated,” Kelly said.

Around the world, incentives including cash prize lotteries, product discounts, and free meals have been used to encourage more people to get vaccinated.

On May 20, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce, who has consistently made public statements that the airline plans to have international flights back on its agenda by the end of this year, called on the federal government to convince more Australians to get vaccinated or risk being “left behind”.

His comments came following a trading update that unveiled further job cuts for international cabin crew, a two-year wage freeze for its staff, and $2 billion in expected losses.

The company’s new round of voluntary redundancies this month come on top of 8,500 roles that have already been lost, including 2,500 ground-handling jobs that are now outsourced to third-party providers.

While the airline’s full recovery is dependent on the reopening of international travel routes, domestic travel’s rebound has proven a bright spot, with the airline unveiling 38 new domestic routes in 2021.

Qantas expects to post a statutory loss before tax of more than $2 billion this financial year, following $2.7 billion of losses last year.

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