Trans-Tasman bubble: Australians will be able to travel to New Zealand without mandatory quarantine from April 19

Dust off your passport, because New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced when Australians will be allowed to fly over the ditch.

Dust off your passport and get your suitcase ready, because Australian residents will be able to fly to New Zealand – without having to enter mandatory hotel quarantine – in less than two weeks.

Addressing media on Tuesday afternoon from Wellington, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has given the trans-Tasman bubble the green light after more than a year of closed international borders with Australia.

Ms Ardern said the two-way quarantine-free travel corridor across the ditch will start at 11.59pm April 18, with major airlines – including Air NZ and Qantas – able to take bookings from April 19.

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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced when Australians will be able to travel to New Zealand. Picture: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images.

“Managing COVID and keeping it out of New Zealand over the last year has been a massive team effort,” she said from the Beehive in Wellington.

“One sacrifice that has been particularly hard for many to bear over the past year has not been able to see friends and family who live in Australia.

“Cabinet was presented with advice today that conditions for opening up quarantine-free travel with Australia had been met.

“The Director-General of Health considers the risk of transmission of COVID-19 from Australia to New Zealand to now be low, and that quarantine-free travel would be safe to commence.”

Ms Ardern said the bubble was a world first of sorts, and an “important step” in post-pandemic recovery.

“This is an exciting day,” Ms Ardern said.

“The Trans-Tasman travel bubble represents the start of a new chapter in our COVID response and recovery, one that people have worked so hard for. That makes New Zealand and Australia relatively unique.

“This is an important step forward in our COVID response and represents an arrangement I do not believe we have seen in any other part of the world.”

“That is, safely opening up international travel to another country while continuing to pursue a strategy of elimination and a commitment to keeping the virus out.”

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said: “This is the first of many more steps to come, I believe, as we get back to a normal, not only over the course of this year but beyond.

“I very much appreciate the arrangement the New Zealand government has come to today, we welcome them back as indeed Kiwis will be welcoming Aussies.

“That means more planes in the air, more jobs on the ground and in the air as well for our airlines.”

People can already travel from New Zealand to most parts of Australia without having to undergo mandatory quarantine, but the trans-Tasman bubble will allow people from both countries to be exempt from quarantine restrictions.

Last month, Ms Ardern outlined a number of concerns she said needed to be resolved before the bubble opens, including the response to potential outbreaks, how contact tracing between the two countries will work and being provided with an up-to-date risk assessment from New Zealand’s director-general of health.

What happens if there is an COVID-19 outbreak?

On Tuesday, Ms Ardern said certain strategies will be in place, travel across the ditch will not be the same as the pre-COVID experience.

“Those undertaking travel on either side of the ditch will do so you were the guidance of flyer beware,” she warned.

“People will need to plan for the possibility of travel being disrupted if there is an outbreak.

In many ways we will treat Australia as a region of our own when making decisions on restrictions, albeit one with the complication of multiple internal borders.”

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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is set to announce the trans-Tasman travel bubble today. Picture: Mark Mitchell

RELATED: Trans-Tasman bubble to be announced today

During the announcement, Ms Ardern also outlined scenarios where the bubble might be paused, such as an outbreak in an Australian city, though it will depend on the particular circumstances including the number of cases and contacts, or whether the source is linked or is unknown.

“Once we know about a case in Australia we will have three possible responses when it comes to flights and access to our border, and we’ve captured these with a framework based on continue, pause, or suspend,” she explained.

“They broadly follow the kinds of decisions that you’d see if there was a case here. For instance, if a case is found that is quite clearly linked to a border worker in a quarantine facility and is well contained, you’ll likely see travel continue.

“If, however, a case was found that was not clearly linked to the border, and a state responded by a short lockdown to identify more information, we’d likely pause flights from that state in the same way we would stop travel into and out of a region in New Zealand.”

Airlines have already reported a surge in flight search between Australia and New Zealand. Picture: Qantas

Travellers will need to undergo random tests

Ms Ardern said that the new bubble will come with some hurdles for travellers departing from Australia, but has confidence the corridor will work.

“When those in Australia, currently, make the welcome decision to come to New Zealand, they’ll be making a booking on what is called a “green zone flight”,” she explained.

“That means there’ll be no passengers on that flight who have come from anywhere but Australia in the last 14 days.

“They will also be flown from crew who have not flown on any high-risk routes for a set period of time. Passengers will need to provide comprehensive information on how they can be contacted while in New Zealand. They won’t be able to travel if they have cold or flu symptoms.

This is how travel to New Zealand will now look. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jenny Evans

“When they fly, they will be required to wear a mask on a flight and will also be asked to download and use the NZ COVID Tracer app for use in New Zealand. On arrival, passengers will be taken through what we will call ‘the green zones’ at the airport, meaning there’ll be no contact with those arriving from other parts of the world.

“We will also be undertaking random temperature checks of those arriving as an extra precaution.”

– with the New Zealand Herald