Passengers from first of eight repatriation flights to Darwin settle in to quarantine at Howard Springs

It comes as the Top End is expected to play a major role in getting thousands of Australians stranded in pandemic-stricken Europe, India and South Africa back home over coming months. The first of eight charter flights, QF110 landed just before noon on Friday after a marathon 15 hour 50 minute journey from Heathrow. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said 161 Australians were on board. The passengers were then tested for COVID-19 before being herded onto buses at the Darwin Airport’s RAAF base to then be taken to Howard Springs’ quarantine facility. They will spend two weeks being constantly monitored for potential symptoms of COVID-19. State-of-the-art armbands which track a person’s pulse, blood oxygenation and temperature will alert health teams of any telltale signs of viral infection. Passengers were tested 48 hours before the flight, immediately before embarking in London, and then once again when they landed in Darwin. In pictures released on Friday by QANTAS, cabin crew are shown wearing masks and welcoming repatriated Australians aboard the chartered flight back to Darwin. “Captain Craig Heinrich gave a very special welcome to everyone on-board, including a reminder about this weekend’s footy finals,” Qantas wrote on its page. Quarantining Australians will be offered state-of-the-art bracelets which will then track their vital signs for any early hints of a potential COVID-19 infection. Earlier this week, teams working on assisting quarantine efforts at Howard Springs said it was “realistic” to expect cases of the deadly virus in returning travellers. Infection rates of the coronavirus have surged across Europe, the UK and US in recent weeks, in what has been described as being a “third wave” of the disease. Addressing the country yesterday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said getting around 30,000 stranded Australians back on home soil was a top priority. “We continue to make good progress towards returning Australians home,” Mr Morrison said. “We want to do that as effectively and quickly and as safely as possible and we will continue to work with all state and territory jurisdictions to facilitate that whenever we can,” he said. Queensland and Western Australia’s premiers agreed on Friday to raise their intake of international arrivals by 150 and 140 respectively. The Prime Minister said there were about 26,200 Australians who registered themselves as needing to get home on September 18 and 4100 of those were vulnerable. Since then, 4,591 Australians had returned home.