Loved ones reunite in Melbourne as international border restrictions are removed

When the last of Australia’s international border restrictions were removed on Monday, travellers jumped at the chance to enter the country.

There were tears and excitement as family and friends greeted their loved ones at Melbourne Airport’s international arrivals hall.

The first overseas visitors touched down on the packed flight SQ227 from Singapore about 8.15am.

Anne and Stuart reunited at Melbourne Airport on Monday.Credit: Wayne Taylor

Airport aviation chief Lorie Argus said it was the first of 12 international flights to arrive at Melbourne on Monday.

Anne, who asked for her surname not to be published, was giddy with nerves while she waited nearly an hour for Stuart, her partner of five years, to walk through the gate. When he finally did emerge, she ran to embrace him.

She was lucky enough to make it over to the United Kingdom, where he lives, a few months ago, but he has not been to Australia since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. “It’s his first trip back home,” Anne said.

“We’ve tried many times for him to get to Australia, but the government is very strict with their exemptions.

“I’m really excited. It has been a long time ... we had to spend Christmas apart, too, which was disappointing.”

Monday marked London resident Vladimir Jovamovic’s first time on Australian soil. Having been with his girlfriend for about a year, he only met her mother for the first time when she ran to hug him at the arrivals terminal on Monday, recognising him straight away.

“We bought tickets when the restrictions were lifted,” Mr Jovamovic said.

Vladimir Jovamovic booked flights to Australia once it was announced restrictions would lift.Credit: Wayne Taylor

Survey data provided exclusively to The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald earlier this month showed travellers from Britain ranked Australia last among the destinations they planned to visit, behind North and South America, Asia, Africa and Europe. Mr Jovamovic said: “I can’t imagine why.”

Some, like Sydney local Tomek Wiwatowski, were just glad to be home after two years struggling to get into Australia. He originally went to the UK for a work contract before the pandemic, and booked flights to come home when it hit, but said “everything just got cancelled”.

“Honestly, I just stayed overseas because I couldn’t come back for a long time. I ended up getting work in the UK, and now it’s done – it’s just kind of lucky that’s coincided with being able to come back home,” Mr Wiwatowski said.

“I was stuck in Hong Kong during the pandemic. Jesus, it was crazy.”

It was a long struggle for Tomek Wiwatowski to make it back to Australia from overseas.Credit: Wayne Taylor

Others travelling for business had been back and forth to Singapore for a while given Australia’s travel bubble with the country. Tuan Nguyen said he noticed the process for getting into Australia was more straightforward than it was even a few days ago, now the restrictions had eased.

“We found this time that, with the right paperwork ... it’s relatively seamless,” he said.

Australia banned non-citizens and non-residents from entering the country almost two years ago, in March 2020, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison saying at the time about 80 per cent of the country’s COVID-19 cases had were coming from overseas.

Mr Morrison said on Sunday 56 international flights were expected to land in Australia in the first 24 hours after border restrictions lifted.

Credit: Matt Golding

Melbourne Airport chief executive Lyell Strambi warned Australians on Sunday not to expect “a bumper reopening” of overseas arrivals, saying it would probably take years for confidence to be restored in international travel.

On Monday, aviation executive Ms Argus said she expected international flights to ramp up more from April through to May.

“We only have about 15 per cent of international travel back thus far. The announcement really was two weeks ago, so airlines need more time to spool up, to get their aircraft dedicated to Australia and get the network flying again. So, we’ll see a slow increase over the next couple of months leading into Easter,” Ms Argus said.

The aviation executive said, pre-pandemic, Melbourne Airport had 39 airlines, and it would take a number of years to get flights back to the level seen before COVID-19.

“Right now we’re at 21 [airlines], soon to be 25,” she said. “We were down to 13 airlines during the pandemic, so they are increasing over the coming months, and we do hope to get 39 back, if not some new entrants into the market.”

Ms Argus said about 40 per cent of the airport’s retailers were open.

Restaurateurs Shane Delia and Frank Camorra joined Ms Argus in welcoming travellers back to Melbourne on Monday, saying the restrictions easing was vital for businesses.

With Roy Ward and Latika Bourke

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