More than 100,000 half-price flights have already been sold in just over 12 hours as part of the government's $1.2 billion scheme to revive domestic tourism.
Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack is at Sydney Airport today, spruiking the government's $1.2 billion scheme designed to boost domestic travel and help struggling tourism destinations hit hard by a year of intermittent coronavirus lockdowns and no international travellers.
He said more than 100,000 of the government's half-price flights to destinations around Australia have already been sold after going on sale at midnight last night.
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"Qantas and Jetstar, they've sold between them 95,000 tickets. Virgin, they've sold thousands upon thousands of tickets as well so it's more than 100,000 already," he said.
There are 800,000 tickets up for grabs in total over three months.
Mr McCormack said the government would "continue to review" the scheme to ensure it was benefiting the tourism destinations.
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"By gee, it's been difficult over the past 12 months or so, and so many Australians should be taking advantage of this because you know what? They need a holiday," he said.
"This is the opportunity to halve the price of their ticket, paid for by the government, so they can go to one of those fantastic places and enjoy themselves."
He also addressed concerns that Queensland's recent COVID-19 outbreak would prevent would-be travellers from booking flights there, as ongoing restrictions remain in place for Queensland.
"We would prefer, of course, that everything was open for business but that is a decision taken by the Queensland government," he said.
"They are acting on their best medical advice, I understand that.
"We wanted to make sure that the health and safety precautions are taken but, as I say, there's plenty of places in Australia crying out for visitors and this scheme enables them to do just that."
