Qantas says it has been forced to delay several of its flights to South Africa at the last minute due to warnings of falling debris from Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets re-entering Earth.
Ben Holland, the head of Qantas’s operations centre, said there was often little advance notice of where the rockets would fall over the southern Indian Ocean – the re-entry zone chosen by the space company due to its remoteness – causing the airline to delay flights on its Sydney-Johannesburg route.
“Over the past few weeks we’ve had to delay several flights between Johannesburg and Sydney due to advice received from the US Government regarding the re-entry of SpaceX rockets over an extensive area of the Southern Indian Ocean,” Holland said.
“While we try to make any changes to our schedule in advance, the timing of recent launches have moved around at late notice which has meant we’ve had to delay some flights just prior to departure. Our teams notify customers of changes to their flight as soon as we know it will be impacted.”
The airline receives warnings specifying geographical coordinates and timing of reentry but these can change at short notice, sometimes right up until the time of departure.
“Customers generally understand this is outside of airlines’ control and that we can’t fly in the area when the rocket re-entry is taking place,” Holland said.
“We’re in contact with SpaceX to see if they can refine the areas and time windows for the rocket re-entries to minimise future disruption to our passengers on the route.”
The Guardian understands South African Airways are also affected by SpaceX’s operations.
SpaceX has been contacted for comment.
