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“It’s been in the last week that this was discovered,” the spokeswoman told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
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“We’ve had to undertake runway repairs, that’s impacted the length of the runway, which affects the larger aircraft because they need a longer runway to take off,” she said.
Darwin Airport’s sole runway usually measures 3384 metres and operates 24/7. It has a joint-user agreement with the Department of Defence which is responsible for detecting and overseeing maintenance works.
“This particular repair has been completed but there will be ongoing repairs required to the runway, so we’ll obviously be keeping that impact to an absolute minimum where we can,” she said.
“The larger aircraft are the ones that go to London, they’re the ones that are impacted. At the end of the day the Qantas flights are going to be returning to Perth,” she said.
Paul Smith, Presiden of ALP Abroad
Qantas rerouted its two non-stop flights between London and Australia from Perth to Darwin during the COVID-19 pandemic when Western Australia closed its borders to the rest of the country and international passengers.
The flights are expected to resume between Perth and London mid-June although that route could be relaunched sooner if maintenance works drag on in Darwin.
Australian Paul Smith, the President of ALP Abroad, flew home to London with his wife and son on QF1 via Darwin on Thursday and said he was furious with Qantas’ poor customer service.
He said while the bags were offloaded at Darwin, they were only informed 15 minutes before landing at Heathrow.
Runway issues: A Qantas plane touches down in Darwin.Credit:Getty
He said he spent five hours on hold with Qantas customer service but never got through and that he never once heard from the airline before their bags were delivered via a third-party courier late on Sunday night.
“My child had no shoes to put on his feet,” he said.
“We were talking to one woman who was going to a wedding and she had none of her clothes and there was literally nobody there to offer any support and this was a known problem - that makes it all the worse,” he said.
“If you’re paying £4100 ($7274) to travel, you should be able to have someone on the ground at the airport who can communicate with you.
“I have not had an email or phone call from Qantas about this in three days.”
He said Qantas should have offered flight refunds.
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