Posted 27 March at 14.00
As you have no doubt heard, we found seats available on flights with Qatar, leaving Auckland, New Zealand on the 1st April, with a scheduled arrival into London Heathrow of 14:20 on the 2nd April. The flights booked are as follows.
1st April
Flight number: QR921
Route: Auckland to Doha
Times: 1545 – 2335
2nd April
Flight number: QR7
Route: Doha to London Heathrow
Times: 0850 – 1420
The airline is charging an eye-watering £1,803 per seat. Please rest assured that Distant Journeys will be covering the cost of this additional flight, as our top priority is to return all our customers as quickly as possible.
It is important to note that the operation of these flights is still subject to the governments of the United Kingdom, Qatar and New Zealand permitting flights to take off and land, and for the Qatari government in particular to continue allowing passengers to transit. As you may be aware, governments have been adding strict border restrictions and airlines have been grounding services with little or no notice.
We are therefore remaining cautiously optimistic about the situation. Please be assured that, in the meantime, we will not stop looking for contingency opportunities to bring our customers back should these flights not work out.
How you can help
As the new flight with Qatar is different to the flights originally booked for our customers, existing travel plans made to travel home from the UK arrival airport will inevitably have to change. As you are aware, with the currently period of self-isolation in the United Kingdom, public transport systems are running at reduced levels. Furthermore, if your friends or family in New Zealand are in considered to be in a high risk category, then the current advice would be to avoid public transport wherever possible.
Any assistance you are able to provide in this respect I am sure will be gratefully received.
We will continue to post updates, should there be any further developments.
Thank you
The Distant Journeys team
