While the MIQ system kept thousands of Kiwis out, New Zealand's regional and international border rules are now keeping Kiwis from leaving the country
By noon, Cantabrian Kara Hunt along with seven other stranded Kiwis and Australians will have flown out of Queenstown on a chartered green zone flight to Australia.
Since the August outbreak, groups of people stuck inside New Zealand have been connecting through Facebook to charter planes to leave the country.
Hunt, who sold the family’s Christchurch home to move to Brisbane where she is paying rent for an apartment she hasn’t even lived in yet, decided it was worth splitting $46,000 to charter the plane to get her family across the ditch.
“We have finally made the call to max out the credit card and join some others in a joint charter. It will hurt in the short to medium term but it’s worth reducing the impact on our mental health in the long term,” Hunt said.
“The case in the South Island only solidified this decision as being able to enter Queensland with no quarantine will only be available while Covid isn’t widespread in the south.”
The Australian Government earlier this month announced only South Islanders could fly across the Tasman from October 20, but Air New Zealand said with most of its crew based in the North Island, the South Island corridor wasn’t commercially viable.
However, another announcement allowing double vaccinated travellers with negative Covid test results to travel into New South Wales and Victoria from November 1 brought new hope to the stranded hopefuls.
Nurse Henry Ulang was meant to start his new job in Sydney in August. But due to the outbreak in Auckland, Ulang had to go back to the job he resigned from while he waited anxiously for a border update.
This week, he finally managed to rebook his trip to Sydney, but Air New Zealand abruptly cancelled the domestic flight from Wellington to Auckland he had to take before his international flight.
“I have no idea why they did that. It makes no sense. Now I’ve had to rebook my flight to arrive in Auckland a day earlier, and spend more money on booking a hotel to stay the night so I can fly the next morning,” Ulang said.
Being an essential worker though, Ulang was able to rebook his flight out of Auckland.
Air New Zealand chief customer and sales officer Leanne Geraghty said a “large number of flights” were cancelled due to Auckland’s border remaining in place, however the airline was operating a reduced schedule to allow essential workers and exempt travellers to move around the country.
She said all customers booked to travel on those services were either given credit or had their fares refunded thanks to the vast majority of passengers being ineligible to travel to and from Auckland under the continuing restrictions.
“Due to the limited number of seats available, the pricing on some of these flights may be higher than the original fare paid. If customers are still eligible to travel, they can rebook their flight within a seven-day period from the date of travel through the contact centre with no additional fare or fees to pay,” Geraghty said.
House of Travel chief operating officer Brent Thomas said the New Zealand Government’s lack of guidance on international borders reopening had made it difficult for the tourism industry and airlines to navigate international travel when other countries are loosening restrictions.
“We're in this limbo where MIQ is not fit for purpose. We've got people who can't even travel out of Auckland. And we're seeing places like Australia ... now opening up and allowing appropriately vaccinated people back in without having to go through MIQ. So where is the New Zealand Government on this?”
In an interview with Newsroom this week, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins revealed MIQ would change by early next year for vaccinated New Zealanders to home isolate for a short period at home.
Thomas said people might accept home isolation for a limited number of days, but the Government needed to act quickly on announcing its international border plans with Christmas just around the corner.
"They have to make that decision on or before the 29th of November, because airlines can't work on a week-to-week basis, the industry doesn't work on a week-to-week basis. They need time to make decisions. And Christmas at that stage is less than four weeks away.
“New Zealand once had nearly 30 airlines flying into it. If we do not move soon, and allow the freedom of movement for people, then airlines will choose to relocate those aircraft permanently to some other places in the world. And they just can't sit them on the ground forever."
Thomas said there was also the risk that as other countries opened up, airlines would go where the demand was.
"They'll start to move the aircraft and we may not see some of those airlines come back to New Zealand, which ultimately impacts the economy significantly.”
He said ongoing complexities in travel would likely revive demand for travel agents.
"The complexities of travel going forward are going to be far greater than they were back in 2019."
