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Auckland International Airport is testing new technology to combat the coronavirus, including thermal imaging cameras to detect travelers with fever, as it prepares to process the first passengers to fly to Australia under a new one-way travel bubble.
Starting Friday, 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 Northern Territory without needing to go into quarantine.
The deal will be one-way, and Australians will not yet be able to enter New Zealand, and anyone leaving these shores for Australia will have to pay for two weeks of administered isolation upon return to New Zealand.
Qantas and its subsidiary Jetstar were quick to re-establish flights through Tasmania after the news, with Qantas operating six Auckland-Sydney flights and four Christchurch-Sydney flights per week and Jetstar operating three Auckland-Sydney flights per week.
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Auckland Airport said the restart of Jetstar and Qantas brought the number of airlines operating scheduled services in Tasmania to four, joining Air New Zealand and Qatar.
Air New Zealand has continued to fly to Australia during the pandemic, with services from Auckland to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Coronavirus cases have been on the rise in the New South Wales capital Sydney, with the state registering six new Covid-19 cases in the community on Thursday.
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The number of airlines offering scheduled passenger services between Tasmania doubles as of tomorrow.
Auckland Airport Operations General Manager Anna Cassels-Brown said she had several technology trials underway to protect passengers at the airport, in addition to existing security measures such as separate terminal areas for transit passengers.
Trials were underway with thermal imaging cameras that could detect someone with a fever among a group of people, he said.
Ultraviolet light technology, commonly used to sterilize surgical equipment, was also installed on escalator handrails, and antimicrobial shields were added to elevator buttons, he said.
“These are really low-key ways that we can improve the comfort of travelers in this post-Covid environment and they are changes that for the most part will go unnoticed,” Cassels-Brown said.
Furthermore, since the beginning of the pandemic, antiviral cleaning at all terminals had been carried out more frequently, with a focus on high-touch areas, he said.
On-site cleanliness audits were carried out using portable digital scanners that ensured that the cleaning regimen was effectively killing germs, he said.
“We know that our cleaning regime is really effective, but technology solutions provide another layer of protection, so we will continue to explore opportunities to use technology in this way.”
The focus was on measures to ensure that the airport was a safe environment for walking, he said.
“This is a serious virus, but we know we can do a lot to manage risk.”
