New Zealand travel bubble approved: Australia flights start date

It’s the news we have all been waiting for. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced when the trans-Tasman bubble will likely open.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has given the green light for a trans-Tasman travel bubble with Australia to launch by March 2021.

While not giving a firm date, Ms Ardern said her cabinet has now agreed to establish the quarantine-free corridor in the first quarter of 2021, providing Australia can keep COVID-19 case levels low and pending Australia’s Cabinet approval. This would mean that Aussie travellers would not need to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival to New Zealand.

“It is our intention to name a date of when the bubble will start in the New Year,” she said.

Currently, New Zealanders are allowed into parts of Australia without needing to enter mandatory hotel quarantine.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said a travel bubble with Australia will be up and running by March 2021. Picture: Paul Kane/Getty Images.

In the Prime Minister’s post cabinet press conference on Monday afternoon, Ms Ardern said that despite the trans-Tasman bubble plan, more preparation needs to be done.

“The opening of the bubble is contingent on Australia’s Cabinet signing it off, and that the COVID-19 situation in either country doesn’t change,” she said.

“I’m incredibly proud of what our team of five million have achieved.

“New Zealand currently has the lowest COVID-19 mortality rate and lowest number of active cases of OECD countries.”

Ms Ardern said one of the biggest hurdles in establishing a bubble is the segregation of passengers from “safe zone” countries deemed low risk, and those travelling in from COVID-19 affected countries. Another issue to be resolved is a contingency plan in case there’s a resurgence of numbers in Australia.

New Zealand’s COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said airlines which had grounded fleet and furloughed staff had indicated they would need a notice period before the bubble begins. Picture: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

New Zealand’s COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins will be visiting Auckland Airport tomorrow to see how they plan to organise segregating travellers.

According to The New Zealand Herald, one of the options on the table for bringing back New Zealanders from Australia if there was an outbreak here, is for those returning travellers to self-isolate when they return home.

Mr Hipkins said the airlines which have grounded fleet and furloughed staff had also indicated they’d need a notice period before the trans-Tasman bubble was operational.

Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt welcomed the announcement made by the New Zealand Prime Minister.

“We consciously opened up Australia to people coming from New Zealand because their case numbers were negligible,” he told media on Monday afternoon.

”We knew there would come a time when our case numbers gave them [New Zealand] confidenc...this is a sign that New Zealand and Australia aren’t just working together, but that families can be back together, in both directions, friends can be back together in both directions, and flights can be full in both directions, which is good for the economy, airlines and good for both countries.”

Pack your bags and dust off that passport, looks like we will be able to travel to New Zealand from early next year. Picture: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images.

The much-awaited announcement comes just days after Queensland opened its border to visitors from New Zealand.

The first Kiwis were allowed into the Sunshine State on Saturday, after New Zealand went 28 days without a case of community transmission of COVID-19.

Alongside Queensland, New Zealanders can already travel to New South Wales and the Northern Territory without isolating although they have to quarantine for two weeks on arriving home.

The opening of the trans-Tasman travel bubble across the ditch will likely be Australia’s first step in overseas travel after our borders were closed to international travel in March.

Last week, Australia’s top health chief Brendan Murphy cautioned that there was still a long way to go before Australia could return to quarantine-free international travel.

Since closing international borders in March in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, anyone wishing to travel abroad from Australia must apply for a special exemption for travel and a two-week quarantine period costing thousands of dollars when returning to Australia.

There is hope that a vaccine will unlock the ability to travel abroad again, however the rollout of a vaccine wouldn’t automatically result in open travel around the world.

Australians may be able to travel to popular New Zealand locations, like Queenstown, from early next year.

Professor Murphy, who now runs the Health Department, said it could be another year before we know more about exactly how the vaccine works in terms of travellers who may have the virus without showing symptoms.

“We still don’t know what the vaccines will do in terms of complete – prevention of transmission of the virus,” Dr Murphy said earlier this month.

“So the vaccines can prevent disease. We know that very clearly. The extent to which they will effectively prevent, for example, asymptomatic transmission or people bringing the virus with them when they travel, we still have to find out.

New Zealanders are allowed into parts of Australia without needing to enter mandatory hotel quarantine. Picture: Brett Costello

“So this is an evolving place and there may well come a time when we have evidence that vaccines are very good at preventing people contracting the infection and in that circumstance it may be appropriate to allow quarantine-free travel.”

New Zealand announced that residents will be able travel to and from the Cook Islands without isolating from early next year.

The travel agreement between both Ms Ardern and her Cook Islands counterpart, Mark Brown, indicated that officials will put in place measures to safely recommence two-way quarantine-free travel in the first quarter of 2021.