Summer Travel 2021: The Latest?

[mike carey]

Kia-ora Aotearoa! Time for me to get my passport renewed!

 

We are about to be able to take our first tentative steps into international travel. From 19 April, the one way travel bubble between Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand will become two way. Travel will be on 'green' flights which will be limited to people who have been in one or other of the two countries for at least 14 days. Anyone who does not meet those requirements, for example people transiting through Australia on their way to New Zealand will have to travel on 'red' flights (I have no idea how many of those there will be) and will have to quarantine on arrival. The NZ government has said that in the future if there are any outbreaks that cause a lock-down in an Australian state, they will close travel from that state and not from the rest of the country. We have faced similar conditions here for interstate travel for months now, where states usually just restrict travel from hot spots in other states as they occur. As we have been seeing domestically, sometimes recent arrivals from a newly identified hotspot may be required to be tested and temporarily isolate pending results.

 

Qantas and Air New Zealand will be resuming close to pre-Covid levels of flights across the ditch but Virgin Australia will not be renewing services until later in the year. On its Sydney to Auckland route Qantas will operate an all A330 service, previously a mix of them and B737s. They will be making their previously seasonal flights to Queenstown year-round and adding services from Cairns and the Gold Coast to Auckland. For the first three days Qantas will have all seats on all their services available as award flights.

 

Neither prime minister gave any indication that other countries will be added to the bubble any time soon, but at least this is a start.