(Reuters) – Australia’s national carrier Qantas has had to delay several Sydney-Johannesburg flights over the past few weeks on advice from the U.S. government over the re-entry of a SpaceX rocket over part of the southern Indian Ocean, the airline said on Tuesday.
Delays of up to six hours were caused by last-minute coordinate changes for the location and timing of re-entry rockets from Elon Musk’s space technology company.
“While we try to make any changes to our schedule in advance, the timing of recent launches has moved late, which has meant we have had to delay some flights just before departure,” said Ben Holland, Qantas’ head of operations. operations center.
“We are in contact with SpaceX to see if they can refine the areas and time frames for rocket re-entry to minimize future disruptions,” Holland added.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
