PoliticalClaims.au

The core claim contains elements of truth but requires significant clarification. The New Daily article reports that the Morrison government did reject offers from Gaura Travel, a Melbourne-based charter flight operator, to use returning flights from India to transport stranded Australians [1]. Gaura's managing director stated: "We have innumerable times applied for permission to do the same [for Australians, as for Indians] but have always been denied" since June 2020, with 35 charter flights organized by that time [1].

However, the government's rationale and the actual scope of this policy differ substantially from the headline claim. The rejections were specifically related to how returning charter flights could be utilized within Australia's border management framework, not a blanket refusal to use available aircraft.

The claim of "empty planes flying into Australia" is partially supported but misleading. The AFR reported in October 2021 that Qantas' record-breaking repatriation flight from Buenos Aires (described as the world's longest commercial flight) "departed with empty seats, stranding Australians in South America" [2]. The article notes this was "the return leg of a charter flight that carried the Argentine rugby team home from Brisbane," suggesting Australians couldn't board what might have been an available return flight [2].

The parliamentary inquiry into DFAT's crisis management identified two main phases of repatriation efforts from January 2020 to September 2021, with contracted flights managed across multiple countries [3]. By October 2021, approximately 46,800 Australians were registered with DFAT for assistance returning home [4], and the government had organized 26,000 repatriations on government-subsidized flights [5].