As the Delta variant surges, could travel bubbles burst before they’ve even begun?

As parts of the country battle the Delta strain, the future of flight corridors could be in limbo for Aussies desperate to go overseas again.

Just like the flight corridor with New Zealand (although at least that one got off the ground), the future of any travel bubble between Australia and Asia may have burst before it even began.

With the Delta variant running rampant in parts of Australia, our friends across the ditch were quick to shut down the corridor for at least two months.

Prior to the latest outbreak in NSW, Australians could travel freely across the Tasman without having to quarantine upon arrival in New Zealand.

But now, the whole country has been cut off from our neighbours as several states deal with the most recent coronavirus outbreak.

With more than 14 million people currently locked down across the country, there are fears future bubbles with countries like Singapore and Japan will be in jeopardy as we – and they – battle the highly contagious Delta variant.

The future of travel bubbles is in limbo. Picture: Che Chorley

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The Federal Government mooted that following New Zealand, a corridor between Australia and Japan and Singapore would be next on the cards for 2021 before opening up to the rest of the world in mid-2022.

With some countries, like Australia and New Zealand, clinging to a Covid-zero strategy, or at least a Covid-almost-zero goal – the desire to stamp out the virus at all costs could put future bubbles in limbo.

While Singapore has stopped disclosing the details of each new Covid-19 case detected in the community as the country moves towards a new phase of battling the pandemic, it is understood through other measurements they recorded 117 new locally transmitted cases on Sunday including 46 cases connected to a growing cluster at Jurong Fishery Port.

Japan has experienced cases soaring 20 per cent, with the Olympic host country recording 4204 new cases on Friday – a rise of 785 on same day last week.

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Singapore has stopped reporting on daily numbers.

According to Bloomberg, a poll earlier this month by OAG – a global travel data provider – found that about half of respondents think a travel recovery in Asia will only happen by July 2022, another full year away.

“Personally, I think that’s verging on the optimistic,” said John Grant, chief analyst with OAG. “Asia is a real worry. Summer 2023 is a more realistic assessment.”

Earlier this month, Australia’s Trade and Tourism Minister Dan Tehan said the travel bubble with Singapore that was to have started this week will now not begin until the end of 2021.

Mr Tehan said that the future of travel, including opening up more bubbles, will rely on vaccine passports for years to come.

Vaccine passports are likely to be in place when overseas travel starts. Picture: Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP

“When it comes to when we were looking at a bubble, it has been put back due to the third wave of the virus,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“This is something that we want to continue to progress and it’ll be part of discussions, so that when the time comes and we can get the medical experts to tick off on it, Singapore still remains a potential next step when it comes to future travel bubbles.

“It’s very difficult to put a time frame on it, but when you look at the plan that Singapore have put in place and you put it alongside the plan that the Prime Minister has announced, the hope might be towards the end of the year that you could look at a travel bubble with Singapore.”