Morning mail: sky high airfares, Scott Morrison’s emissions target, super swim

Thursday: Ticket prices hit Australians' holiday hopes. Plus: Chloe McCardel completes world-record Channel crossing

Good morning. Australians hoping for an overseas holiday in coming months face astronomical air fares, Scott Morrison faces internal resistance to higher emission reduction targets, and the Australian marathon swimmer Chloe McCardel has completed a world-record 44th crossing of the Channel.

Thousands of Australians face $5,000 return flights as experts warn it could take a full year" until international flight tickets return to pre-Covid prices. More than 45,000 Australians remain stranded overseas, with a scarce supply of tickets into the country available, despite both the prime minister and NSW premier's optimism that travel could be fast-tracked" by early November. The outback town of Wilcannia is celebrating two weeks Covid-free after the virus hit like a cyclone" in August, but Aboriginal people in the Hunter-New England region have experienced a 400% increase during the past fortnight. Meanwhile, regional advocates have called for telecommunications to be enshrined in legislation as an essential service, with bushfires, floods and now the Covid pandemic causing outages across as many as 1,400 facilities nationwide.