Australians stranded overseas have slammed a plan to fly in international students from next month while they are forced to spend months in limbo after being bumped off eight $6,000 flights in a row
- Trial program brings 300 international students to Adelaide universities
- Chews up most of the city's weekly cap on international arrivals plaguing expats
- Australians overseas spending months getting home and paying thousands
- Cap on arrivals means they are regularly booted from planes or flights cancelled
Australians stranded overseas are outraged overseas students will begin arriving next month, while they struggle to get home.
About 300 students from China, Hong Kong, and Japan will fly into Adelaide via Singapore in September in a trial program.
The students will spend two weeks in hotel quarantine, paid for by their universities, before beginning their studies on campus.
Universities are facing $3 billion losses from students being locked out of Australia by the travel ban, and hope the trial can be expanded nationwide.
However, thousands of Australian citizens trying to make their way home feel their government is prioritising foreign students over them.
About 300 students from China, Hong Kong, and Japan will fly into Adelaide via Singapore in September in a trial program (stock image)
Travellers report being bumped off up to eight flights in a row. Two Australians are pictured finally having made it on to a flight
Strict arrival limits brought in last month mean the few airlines still flying to Australia cancel many flights because they are not economical.
Travellers report being bumped off up to eight flights in a row or forced to buy business class tickets on planes with just 30 passengers.
'Australians are stranded overseas, businesses are unable to trade and families are separated,' one Australian wrote to Trade Minister Simon Birmingham.
'If you can make it happen for Unis, how about making it happen for everyone else.'
Social media groups of Australians in quarantine hotels or trying to get on a flight home erupted after Sunday's announcement of the student program.
'This is a real slap in the face for citizens that are stuck,' one wrote.
Another wrote: 'Non-Australians are been given priority over Australian citizens to enter the country. This is wrong on every level.'
Australians trying to get home say they were forced to buy business class tickets on planes with just 30 passengers. Here a child plays in the completely empty economy section
Pandemonium at an airport in London as an Australian desperately tries to get on a flight home
Others said the decision showed the Australian Government cared more about money than its own citizens.
'I'm an Australian student stuck overseas and doing my course online at 3am! No offers to try get me to my home country nor pay for my quarantine yet they will for students from other countries,' one wrote.
Another wrote: 'The government cares more about making money from overseas students than its own citizens. It's utterly shameful and an insight into the new values of the Australian government.'
Only 500 arrivals are allowed per week to Adelaide under the cap, and the charter flights of students would use up 300 for the week it arrived.
Senator Birmingham insisted this would not impact Australian travellers because the cap to Adelaide had never actually been reached.
'There continues to be quarantine capacity for those who can get a flight into Adelaide,' he said.
Students warn others to stay away
Even if Australia is able to jump start its education industry by flying international students in, its reputation might be seriously damaged.
A survey by University of Technology Sydney and the University of NSW found 59 per cent of students who stayed during the pandemic would not recommend Australia as a place to study.
This was because they were denied any JobSeeker or JobKeeper benefits available to Australians, leaving them feeling abandoned.
Australian politicians repeatedly told international students to go home early in the pandemic.
International Students line up outside the Melbourne Town Hall for retail vouchers
A separate survey by Unions NSW found 60 per cent of international students in that state lost their jobs and another 25 per cent had their hours slashed.
Almost half were skipping meals to stay alive while others were sharing rooms or even homeless with no way of getting to their home countries.
Many of those who did find work were exploited by employers and paid as little as $8 an hour or made to work a trial shift for free.
Students who stayed in the country did so because they either couldn't get a flight home, their country's borders were closed, or they had invested too much time and money in their degree to pull out.
Strict arrival limits brought in last month mean the few airlines still flying to Australia cancel many flights because they are not economical
However, as the initial 300 is a trial to see if international student arrivals can be managed, many more would be flown in around the country if it succeeds.
'International education is a huge services export industry for Australia and for South Australia,' Senator Birmingham said.
'It underpins many thousands of jobs and it is important that we work out how we get international students back to Australia safely and appropriately.
'This pilot of around 300 students coming into Adelaide is going to be used to test just exactly how we're going to manage that.'
One way flights out of London, for reference, in the next two weeks are only affordable if they are two or three-stop marathons bouncing around the globe.
Even those cost more than $5,000 to Sydney, dropping to $2,000 by September, but are mostly on multiple airlines with a risk of being stranded mid-journey.
Less than 60 international students arrived in Australia in June, a dramatic drop for 46,000 in the same months last year.
South Australian universities have about 7,000 studying remotely from their home countries and Australia had 500,000 in the country before the pandemic.
