AMDA Foundation today announced that it was deferring Rotortech until June 2021 because concerns about the spread of COVID-19 are unlikely to allow restrictions on travel to be relaxed in time.
Rotortech, Australia's national helicopter and UAV industry exhibition and convention, was originally scheduled for June 2020, but was postponed until October 2020 earlier this year. It has now been rescheduled again for 15-17 June 2021, remaining at the Royal International Convention Centre in Brisbane.
AMDA CEO Ian Honnery said that international adn interstate participation was important to Rotortech, which couldn't be guaranteed under existing travel restrictions.
"As the organiser of the Rotortech Helicopter and Unmanned Flight Exposition, AMDA Foundation Limited has continuously monitored the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on Australian domestic and international travel, in order to assess whether, on its current dates from 14 to 16 October 2020, Rotortech will remain readily accessible to exhibitors, participants and stakeholders from Australia and around the world," he said.
"Unfortunately, the recent course of COVID-related travel constraints has suggested that the prospect of internal domestic border closures and the continuation of international travel restrictions may adversely affect ease of travel to Brisbane in October.
"The ongoing implications of the pandemic over the next few months remain unpredictable and we are unable to be reasonably confident that travel constraints will not continue to apply.
"To avoid any continuing uncertainty for exhibitors, participants and industry, we have therefore decided to defer Rotortech until mid-next year, by which time the prospect of border restrictions and travel constraints should, hopefully, have passed."
All major fly-ins and air shows in Australia have been rescheduled to next year except for Wings over Illawarra, which is soldiering on with its November 2020 plans.