It looks like the international travel ban is finally being lifted in November, with airlines already announcing where Australians will be able to fly next month.
Scott Morrison recently told reporters from Canberra, “it’s time to give Australians their lives back. We’ve saved lives. We’ve saved livelihoods but we must work together to ensure that Australians can reclaim the lives that they once had in this country.”
Mr. Morrison further confirmed that Australia was leaning towards Phase C of its reopening plan and would hopefully hit that goal next month when 80 percent of Australia’s population becomes double-vaccinated.
Flight Centre CEO Graham Turner told news.com.au that things would likely “get back to normal very, very quickly” once Australia hits Phase C.
“There’s still 18 international airlines flying into Australia … they don’t all have the same seat availability they did before but once you can travel without hotel quarantine things will go back to normal,” he added.
He further said, “everyone wants to see family at this time so there’ll be a fair bit of demand because everyone wants to see their family. but I think it’ll be normal, pre-Covid, high season prices once everything comes back on the market.”
“The main thing is that tourists won’t want to isolate at home for seven days, I don’t think any other country does that, that is quite an onerous thing, it should be one or two days until you receive a negative test.”
Mr. Morrison also reminded everyone that a number of hurdles need to be cleared first before international flights can resume again.
“Firstly, we need home quarantine pilots in New South Wales and South Australia to conclude and be successful so they can be rolled out at scale,” the PM revealed.
“Second, the seven-day home quarantine can only be completed by Australian citizens and permanent residents that are fully vaccinated with a vaccine recognised by the TGA.
“Fourteen-day quarantine will still be in place for anyone not fully vaccinated or vaccinated with a vaccine not recognised by the TGA.
“We‘re also offering facilitated commercial flights for Australians overseas into states and territories that agree to commence the home quarantine trials,” Mr. Morrison mentioned as well.
The PM said Australia was also working towards “completely quarantine-free travel for certain countries such as New Zealand when it is safe to do so”.
“So this is an important next step in the national plan. No surprises here… we said to Australians – we get to 80 percent, you can leave the country and you can come back again,” Mr. Morrison continued.
Anyone hoping to fly overseas must test negative to Covid before their flight and must have received two doses of a Covid vaccine.
The international travel ban was supposed to be lifted on December 17, however, 21 months after it was imposed, there was a huge rise in vaccination rates which means international travel can resume a month earlier.
As per news.com.au, double-vaccinated Australians can now begin planning their trips to the US, UK, Singapore, and Japan among other destinations, with Mr. Morrison providing the actual framework that states and territories will need to meet before they can officially accept overseas Australians.
NSW is expected to be the first to open international travel and in fact, travellers will be able to trial a seven-day home quarantine option. Victoria is currently in talks to reopen international travel as well but nothing definite at this stage.
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