The airline grounded its international fleet last March and I'd hoped to resume flights from July today, the chief executive, Alan Joyce said.

They will now wait until the expected completion of Australia's vaccine rollout in October.

With the exception of flights to New Zealand since the start of the year, we see in a huge surge in covid cases around the world, new strains emerging and a shift from herd immunity as the threshold for opening to fully vaccination to be the threshold for opening the border.

Australia began its mass inoculation drive on Sunday, having reported just under 29,000 covid 19 infections and 909 deaths since last March.

Qantas has said it will require international travelers to be vaccinated in order to board its flights.

The airline is not expecting international travel numbers to return to their pre covid levels until 2024 with capacity expected to be at 40% next year.