[ad_1]
Qantas and its Jetstar subsidiary were quick to start selling flights across Tasmania following news that Australia will allow New Zealanders to visit without needing to self-quarantine.
And airlines say there are likely new routes that they hadn’t previously offered from New Zealand to Australia, as more Australian cities open up.
On Friday, Australian Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack said that as of October 16, New Zealanders who have not been to a designated Covid-19 hotspot in the past 14 days will be able to travel to New South Wales and the Territory of the United States. North.
The agreement will initially be one-way, with Australians being unable to travel to New Zealand, and anyone leaving these shores for Australia will have to pay for two weeks of administered isolation upon return to New Zealand.
READ MORE:
* Air NZ’s strong domestic recovery could prompt Jetstar to expand into NZ – analyst
* Coronavirus: all international Qantas and Jetstar flights suspended since the end of March
Qantas and Jetstar have started selling scheduled flights from the day the new rule applies, following a six-month absence from the trans-Tasman market due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on international travel.
Throughout Covid-19, Air New Zealand has continued to operate limited services from Auckland to Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.
SUPPLIED
Qantas has started selling trans-Tasmanian tariffs following news that New Zealanders can now enter Australia without going into quarantine.
However, an Air New Zealand spokeswoman said it had nothing to announce about additional capacity following the development of the bubble on Friday.
As of October 16, Qantas offers six flights from Auckland to Sydney per week starting at $ 882 one-way and four flights from Christchurch to Sydney per week starting at $ 875 one-way.
Jetstar operates three flights from Auckland to Sydney per week, starting at $ 279 each way.
Air New Zealand flights from Auckland to Sydney on October 16 cost $ 592 one way.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said the first phase of a travel bubble with New Zealand was the best news the industry had had in months.
“It’s great for family and friends to get together and for people who need to travel for work,” Joyce said.
“It means we can get more planes to go back to the sky and more people to go back to work.”
New Zealand was Australia’s second-largest source of visitors before the pandemic.
“He’s obviously about to go straight to number one.”
Air New Zealand Chief Executive Officer Greg Foran said the outbound travel bubble is a positive step towards opening a Tasmanian bubble.
“Kiwis who want to reconnect with family and friends in the Northern Territory and New South Wales will welcome this news, and we look forward to hearing more about a safe area of Tasmania soon,” Foran said.
Virgin Australia said in a statement that the travel zone through Tasmania was a welcome first step and would help the aviation sector recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
“However, we are commercially dependent on roundtrip passenger traffic, so our approach to reintroducing services between Australia and New Zealand will ultimately be driven by customer demand.”
Ricky Wilson / Stuff
New Zealand Aviation Coalition (NZAC) co-chair Justin Tighe-Umbers says a “hotspot” is an area with fewer than three Covid-19 cases over three days.
New Zealand Aviation Coalition (NZAC) co-chair Justin Tighe-Umbers said there would be many New Zealanders with family and friends in Australia and business people who would benefit from non-quarantine travel.
“It is now up to the New Zealand government to reconsider how it could open up to Australians under the same conditions,” Tighe-Umbers said.
A “hotspot” was an area where there had been fewer than three cases of the virus over three days, he said.
“We would like New Zealand to do the same and bring certainty to travelers, businesses and airlines, and open trips without quarantine to people from those Australian states that meet a similar hotspot definition.”
Forsyth Barr analysts Andy Bowley and Scott Anderson said that for New Zealand to form a bubble with Australia, the New Zealand government would need to have confidence that Australian states had eliminated Covid-19 and that states bordering Victoria they had sufficient controls to guarantee a low risk of interstate transmission.
