Aussies locked out of New Zealand until April 30, 2022

Australians will be locked out of New Zealand until April 30, in a decision slammed by the travel industry.

Air New Zealand has expressed hope the government will reconsider a plan not to reopen to Australia and other countries until April 30, 2022.

The New Zealand government’s decision to shut Australians out of the country until late April 2022 has been blasted as “a complete body blow” to the travel industry, given the size of the trans-Tasman market.

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, New Zealand ranked as Australia’s top travel destination with 1.5 million people making the trip across the ditch each year, to holiday, visit family and friends, or work.

Although New Zealanders will be able to travel across the Tasman from January 17, the bubble will not be a two-way deal until April 30.

Even then fully vaccinated arrivals into New Zealand will have to home isolate for seven days, and return negative Covid tests before and after their flight.

Australian travel agents and airlines expressed their disappointment with the Ardern government’s decision, which came after Air New Zealand scrapped more than 1000 flights across the Tasman in December.

The kiwi carrier announced it would now cancel flights scheduled up until January 17, with New Zealanders currently in Australia able to travel home at that time.

“While it would have been nice to reunite friends and families this side of Christmas, customers will now have the confidence to plan reunions and holidays into the New Zealand,” said Air New Zealand chief customer and sales officer Leanne Geraghty.

“We will be ready before late April to fly visitors from around the globe and we’re hoping New Zealand’s success with vaccinations will see that decision reviewed and brought forward in the New Year.”

Australian Federation of Travel Agents Dean Long said the announcement was a “complete body blow” for the trans-Tasman travel sector but perhaps not surprising.

“The approach taken by New Zealand to Covid-19 has been one of the most aggressive elimination strategies which we all know is not sustainable,” Mr Long said.

“I think everybody in Australia and New Zealand saw two countries that were closely aligned in terms of their recovery from Covid-19. That will be extremely challenging now with New Zealand’s reopening so far down the track.”

He said there was a real risk that “the Land of the Long White Cloud” would not regain its sizeable share of the Australian market for years, with travellers likely to book other destinations.

“People typically book overseas holidays at least six to nine months out, so with New Zealand not reopening until basically May, their travel industry will be lucky to see too many visitors in 2022,” said Mr Long.

Qantas and Jetstar recently pushed back the restart of regular passenger flights to New Zealand until January, and were now expected to hold off indefinitely.

“It’s really disappointing that people on both sides of the Tasman won’t be able to reunite before Christmas despite the fact vaccination rates in both countries will be among the best in the world by then,” said a Qantas spokeswoman.

Virgin Australia was also expected to postpone its long-awaited restart of trans-Tasman flights, which have now been on hold since July.

Mr Long said an industry survey found the international destinations currently attracting most interest from Australians were the US, UK, Japan, Singapore and Fiji.

“It’s very interesting because Bali as a destination was down in ninth position as for where people were seeking to book,” he said.

“I think that demonstrates that Australians are conditioned to be travelling to places which effectively have a good health system or a high vaccination rate, if not both, so destinations like Bali will take a long time to recover.”

New Zealand currently has more than 5000 active Covid-19 cases, and 84 per cent of the eligible population (aged 12 and over) is fully vaccinated.

Originally published as Aussies locked out of New Zealand until April 30, 2022