As the aviation industry scrambles to cope with the devastating impacts of coronavirus, Qantas drastically reduces its regional flight services from Tamworth.
Return flights to Sydney have been slashed from 29 to 12 each week, and the recently announced Brisbane to Tamworth service has been cut before it ever got the chance to take off.
Qantas announced severe cuts to domestic and international flights and 60 per cent of domestic flights as fallout from the Coivd-19 pandemic spread throughout Australia.
All regularly scheduled Qantas and Jetstar international flights from Australia will be suspended from end March until at least end May 2020.
Some flights may continue in order to maintain key links, based on ongoing discussions with the Federal Government.
Armidale will now have 12 flights to Sydney each week.
"The efforts to contain the spread of Coronavirus have led to a huge drop in travel demand, the likes of which we have never seen before," Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce said.
"With the huge drop in revenue we’re facing, we have to make difficult decisions to guarantee the future of the national carrier.
“The reality is we’ll have 150 aircraft on the ground and sadly there’s no work for most of our people. Rather than lose these highly skilled employees who we’ll need when this crisis passes, we are instead standing down two-thirds of our 30,000 employees until at least the end of May.”