Qantas South Africa flights delayed by falling debris from SpaceX rocket, airline says | Qantas

Qantas said it was forced to postpone several of its flights to South Africa at the last minute due to warnings of falling debris from Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets as they re-entered Earth.

Ben Holland, the head of the Qantas operations center, said there was often little advance notice of where the missiles would impact over the southern Indian Ocean – the re-entry zone the space company chose because of its remoteness – leading to this the airline delayed its flights on the Sydney-Johannesburg route.

“In recent weeks we have had to postpone several flights between Johannesburg and Sydney due to advice from the US government regarding the re-entry of SpaceX rockets over a wide area of ​​the southern Indian Ocean,” Holland said.

“Although we try to make changes to our flight schedule in advance, the timing of the latest takeoffs has been postponed at short notice, which has resulted in us having to postpone some flights shortly before departure. Our teams will notify customers of changes to their flight as soon as we know they will be affected.”

The airline receives alerts indicating the geographical coordinates and time of re-entry. However, these can change at short notice, sometimes even up to the time of departure.

“Customers generally understand that this is beyond the control of the airlines and that we will not be able to fly in the area when the rocket re-entry occurs,” Holland said.

“We are in contact with SpaceX to see if they can clarify the areas and time windows for rocket re-entries to minimize future disruption to our passengers on the route.”

The Guardian understands that South African Airways flights are also affected by SpaceX’s operations.

SpaceX has been contacted for comment.