Qantas’s long-awaited flights between Johannesburg and Perth are scheduled to continue only until the end of March, 2023.

Hopefully, before the flights cease, a solution will be found to the problem, which appears to be lack of capacity at Perth Airport to deal with security and biosecurity screening from certain countries, among them South Africa.

Qantas’s planned Perth to Jakarta flights have been put on ice for the same reason.

A statement from the airline said the original plan was for the PER-JNB service to operate out of Terminal 3, from which Qantas operates all its domestic and international services.

“However, infrastructure constraints at Terminal 3 make it difficult to deliver the levels of border security and biosecurity screening required to process passengers from some destinations, including South Africa. We have a workaround for the period November 1, 2022 to March 25, 2023.

“As a result of these constraints and the operational workaround required, the JNB service will be suspended from March 28, 2023. We need to balance the needs of our customers and operations with the important job our agencies do in screening pax and managing risk at the border.

“We appreciate the support of Perth Airport as well as government agencies in developing and implementing these alternatives so we can meet the strong travel demand to/from South Africa over the peak holiday period,” said Qantas.

The airline says the policy for the re-accommodation of customers impacted by the suspension of Qantas-operated services between Perth and Johannesburg can be found on Qantas Agency Connect.

This is the only direct service from South Africa to Western Australia, complementing Qantas’s existing daily Johannesburg-Sydney service. The JNB-PER flight cuts six hours off the flying time of the fastest indirect alternative.