Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the ACT would likely welcome two more repatriation flights this year as states and territories were pushed to help bring thousands of stranded Australians home by Christmas.
The ACT would welcome up to 150 people over a 16-to-18-day period, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced last month, as the cap on international arrivals was slightly raised in a bid to bring around 34,000 people home by December.
Mr Barr said the ACT would not accept a chartered repatriation flight for at least another two weeks as the government looked into its hotel quarantine system, off the back of former senior public servant Jane Halton's nationwide review.
"It is my expectation that within the next two to three weeks we would take a flight and then two to three weeks later we would take another one," he said.
"So I expect we would take two flights before Christmas of repatriated Australians into hotel quarantine."
Mr Barr said following the review, the hotel quarantine system would need to be changed to ensure international and domestic travellers were kept in separate hotels.
"That's the main and really important finding," he said.
The review also found it was key travellers were placed in rooms with a balcony or access to fresh air.
"Asking people to spend 14 days in a 20-square-metre hotel room with no window opening and no balcony, is a pretty significant imposition on them and their mental health," Mr Barr said.
Mr Barr said the ACT was limited by the number of people it could take into hotel quarantine, as it managed returning diplomats and government officials.
There were currently 108 international travellers in quarantine in the ACT and 209 domestic travellers. The only state required to quarantine in the ACT is Victoria, with the border due to reopen on November 23.
Canberra Airport head of aviation Michael Thomson said the airport would welcome more activity as border openings aided a slow growth in business.
"From an infrastructure perspective we're very able to accommodate these flights," he said.
"We can segregate international passengers from domestic passengers so the risk of cross-contamination is negligible. We can do deep-cleans at the international side of the terminal [after] flights arrive and have that space in-between."
The ACT has accepted two repatriation flights, one from Nepal in June and the first from India in May.
ACT Health said international passengers would be screened when they disembarked at Canberra Airport and taken by bus to designated hotels secured by police throughout the two-week period.
It had not yet been determined which hotels would be used as quarantine facilities.
