Qantas Group Brings Australians Home 

As the national carrier, Qantas stands ready to help Australians in times of need, at home or abroad.

Australians began heading home yesterday as clearing weather saw a window of opportunity allowing Qantas and Jetstar to launch relief flights. Relief operations on Thursday saw 16 flights deployed to the island including a Qantas 747-400 operated by volunteer crew, enabling more than 3,500 people to return to Australia.

Over the coming days, we will operate as many flights as we can subject to ash movement and weather conditions. However, Mount Agung is unpredictable and experts are saying this activity could continue for weeks.

Qantas would like to acknowledge the Australian Government and Indonesian officials who have assisted in the efficient approval of scheduled and relief services in recent days as well as passenger facilitation.

Qantas takes its role as the national carrier seriously and has a long history of bringing Australians home when there is trouble abroad. With the capacity to provide aircraft, personnel and expertise to far corners of the globe, Qantas has evacuated Australians from Bali in 2002, Lebanon in 2006, Egypt in 2011 and Fiji in 2012.