Australia’s travel bubble with NZ opens: How border rules will change
More than six months after Australia dramatically locked down its borders in response to COVID-19, the arrival of an Air New Zealand flight at lunch time tomorrow will signal a bold new phase of the pandemic.
Australia’s border rules will be relaxed tomorrow as the country establishes a trans-Tasman travel bubble with New Zealand.
Under the deal, New Zealanders will be allowed to travel quarantine-free into NSW and the Northern Territory if they have not been in a COVID-19 hot spot in the previous 14 days.
It will be a one-way deal initially, with New Zealand yet to say when Australians will be able to make their own journey across the ditch.
More than 350 passengers from New Zealand will arrive in Sydney on three flights on Friday after the travel bubble opens at midnight.
The first flight, Air New Zealand flight NZ103, is expected to touch down at Sydney Airport about 12.20pm with 200 passengers on board.
It will be followed by Jetstar flight JQ204 at 1.40pm and Qantas flight QF146 at 5.55pm.
While international flights continued to arrive in Australia throughout the pandemic, passengers on these flights will be the first in months to leave the airport freely, rather than being whisked away for mandatory hotel quarantine.
Kiwi holiday-makers, those reuniting with friends and relatives, and New Zealanders who are usually based in Australia are expected to be among those on board tomorrow’s flights.
Sydney Airport chief executive Geoff Culbert said the arrival of the flights would be a welcome change.
“We haven’t welcomed people to Sydney in months that haven’t had to come through customs and go straight on to buses to hotel (quarantine),” Sydney Airport chief executive Geoff Cuthbert told yesterday’s AFR National Infrastructure Summit in Sydney.
New Zealand passengers who touch down in Australia will be kept separate from returning travellers from other countries, who still need to complete hotel quarantine on arrival.
But visitors from New Zealand will still have to complete 14 days of quarantine when they return home, at a personal cost of around $NZ3100 ($A2900) per person, which has reportedly dulled interest in travelling across the ditch.
https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/australias-travel-bubble-with-nz-opens-how-border-rules-will-change/news-story/ef5d68d79ec3871a3a86dcbbe3d19974
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