By Shireen Khali,
published by news.co,.au, 15 January 2024
Qantas has been forced to delay several flights, some up to six hours, on a popular route with billionaire Elon Musk at the centre.
Qantas has been forced to delay several flights between South Africa and Australia – some up to six hours – as debris from SpaceX rockets falls back to Earth over the southern Indian Ocean.
The Aussie carrier confirmed that over the past few weeks its had to delay some flights between Johannesburg and Sydney due to advice received from the US Government regarding the re-entry of SpaceX rockets over an extensive area of the Southern Indian Ocean.
As such, the airline has taken the conservative action to avoid the area as communicated.
News.com.au understands the coordinates for the location and timing of re-entry can change at short notice (sometimes up to departure).
“Our teams notify customers of changes to their flight as soon as we know it will be impacted.
“Customers generally understand this is outside of airlines’ control and that we can’t fly in the area when the rocket re-entry is taking place.”
Flights cannot operate in an area where rocket debris is falling into the atmosphere and Qantas said it is in contact with SpaceX to see if they can refine the areas and time windows for the rocket re-entries “to minimise future disruption” to passengers on the route.
Re-entry activity has led us to delay flights for a period of one hour, up to six hours.
The US Federal Aviation Administration authorised a record 148 commercial space operations in its latest fiscal year and projected the number could more than double in 2028, according to The Age.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX expects as many as 400 launches of its new Starship vehicle over the next four years. The company is scheduled to carry out a test flight of the spacecraft this week, the publication added.
See: Original Article
