Strip-search of women at Qatar airport factor in denial of more Qatar Airways flights to Australia

The Australian government said on Thursday (September 7) that a strip search of female passengers at Qatar's Hamad International Airport played a part in its decision this year to stop Qatar Airways from selling more flights to Australia. According to a report by the news agency Reuters, the Australian government denied it was acting due to pressure from Qantas Airways.

Addressing a press conference in Canberra, Australian Transport Minister Catherine King said that the invasive body searches of female passengers, which included five Australian women, at the airport in 2020 were the context for the decision to deny the airline more flights to Australia in July this year.

Minister mentions another incident as reason for blocking flights

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King said, "It wasn't the only factor. It was a factor." She referred to another incident, where women were taken off a Qatar Airways plane and forced to undergo medical examination after the discovery of an abandoned baby at the airport. The Qatar government later apologised.

The minister also said it was nonsense to suggest that adding more Qatar Airways flights would have put downward pressure on international fares.

Women's experiences were...: Australian minister

Transport Minister King further told reporters that the women's experiences were pretty frankly, not anything the government would expect anyone, and certainly not Australians travelling on an international airline, to experience.

According to an Al-Jazeera report on Thursday, the five Australian women were suing Qatar Airways and the state-run Qatar Civil Aviation Authority over the 2020 incident. In June, their lawyers sent King a letter which described Qatar Airways as “not fit to carry passengers around the globe let alone to major Australian airports.”

In July, King formally rejected the airline's bid to add flights to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and said the proposal was not in Australia’s national interests.

Al-Jazeera reported that the Australian government has been under fire for blocking Qatar Airways’ proposal. Critics, meanwhile, have accused the government of Qantas’s profits at the expense of consumers.

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