Almost two years into the pandemic, travel between New Zealand and Australia for the families of the 500,000 across the ditch remains easier said than done
Crossing the seas has never been a cheap prospect for Kiwis.
With our closest neighbours 2000 km away, leaving New Zealand has historically set travellers back a significant chunk of change - whether it was by ship or plane.
In 1928, 30,000 Kiwis watched Charles Kingsford-Smith land near Christchurch after he spent 14 hours and 25 minutes battling heavy rain and icy windshields - the first flight across the Tasman.
From that point on, our neighbours became more and more easily within our reach.
The advent of relatively cheap air travel brought costs down to a few hundred dollars in the second half of the 20th Century, and the prospect of popping across the ditch for a long weekend became a reality for the first time ever.
But unlike the genies of many other technological developments that will resist going back into the bottle once popped, casually hopping on a plane to another country may not be as steadfast an institution as previously thought.
The concept of flygskam or ‘flight shame’ - avoiding air travel in order to help reduce its environmental impact - began in Scandinavia in the late 2010s.
Commercial aviation can be blamed for just over 2 percent of global carbon emissions - along with the cocktail of other byproducts of sending a massive aluminium cylinder through the air at 500 miles per hour, such as nitrogen oxide and water vapour.
But just as finding more terrestrial ways to get to where you need to go was gaining in popularity (helped in no small part by noted adherents like Greta Thunberg), aviation hit another stumbling block.
The pandemic came with its own parallel pandemic of border restrictions and flight cancellations, posing the biggest crisis commercial aviation has seen since Richard Pearse first crashed his monoplane into a hedge near Timaru.
Over the past two years, travel between New Zealand and Australia has become a difficult and unpredictable affair - not just because of the trans-Tasman bubble's rapid inflation and then bursting, but also due to the costs now hidden behind airfares in a pandemic world.
Before getting on a plane to Australia, travellers must produce a negative PCR test taken in the last three days.
But while general tests for members of the public displaying symptoms or surveillance tests for those working at MIQ are provided free, the pre-departure tests necessary for travel can add hundreds to the trip’s cost.
Pre-departure tests mean a trip to a doctor or clinic where swabs can be taken and then sent to the lab for processing. Both parties have their own costs, with Labtests in Auckland charging $141 and doctors and clinics charging for time and labour on top of that.
In response to how the lab costs break down, Heather Phillips from Labtests said processing a test requires several core components.
"The main one being the cost of the test reagents (or test kit) from our suppliers, and the cost of purchasing and maintaining our analysers and front-end robotics, which amount to several millions of dollars," she said. "The cost reflects the fact that they are resource intensive compared to other forms of tests. Generally speaking, they have to be tested in a laboratory by experts on expensive instruments."
Phillips said pre-departure PCR prices in New Zealand were roughly on par with those in Australia or the UK, and Labtests have processed around 5000 tests over the last month.
"Whether this demand keeps rising will depend on the rules set out by other countries and whether testing options like rapid antigen testing become more widely accepted by other jurisdictions," she said.
Looking over a number of GP clinics and health providers that offer the service, the average price is around $250. This means testing centres are charging over $100 for the two minutes it takes to swab the would-be traveller.
Group manager of testing and supply for the Ministry of Health Darryl Carpenter said the ministry couldn't comment on the pricing of private operators.
And the cheaper alternative of antigen tests were not up to snuff for this purpose, as they require a higher quantity of the virus to be present before they can pick it up.
"As a result, they are less sensitive at detecting cases, especially in asymptomatic people or people who are early in their infectious period," Carpenter said.
So while rapid antigen testing is in use for returnees undergoing self-isolation - in tandem with PCR tests - prospective fliers still need to go through the relatively expensive private provider route, and hope that their results will return within the 72-hour window.
Labtests in Auckland suggests people bring the sample to the laboratory themselves if they're worried about results returning within the less than three days before they need to be at the airport gate with negative test in hand.
However, Phillips said at the moment testing was being performed well within the 48-hour mark at Labtests.
"It’s important for travellers to understand what determines turnaround times is the distance their test has to travel to get to the laboratory, and what the need for public health response is like at the time of their test," she said. "The disclaimer is on our website to allow for things outside of our control."
The disclaimer on the site outlines what will happen if a test isn't ready in time. There is no discount if the traveller makes the drive to the lab in Mt Wellington themselves and if a flight is rescheduled or cancelled, it's back to the clinic for another test and another swipe of the debit card.
The expense of elective or non-essential medical services is unsurprising - as anybody who has paid out of pocket for non-ACC covered expenses will attest to.
However, if the last few decades saw commercial aviation on the road to trend to democratising the skies and cheaper air travel meaning access for a wider spread of incomes, this is a roadblock.
Returning from another country requires another pre-departure test. Looking over testing in Australia, this would run you around $170.
So with the additional paperwork needed to cross the border, a trip to Melbourne or Sydney would cost over $1000, when there was a time a few years ago when it would cost around half that.
One group this will affect is the frequent fliers who grew used to holiday making in sunnier climes in years past. Much of this group will be able to go ahead despite these cost hikes and simply take the hit.
But with over 500,000 New Zealanders living in Australia, there are many families spread across an ocean who have yet to reunite after what has quickly turned into years.
As the cost of travel becomes prohibitive due to restrictions and diminished supply, grandparents are foregoing meeting grandchildren, and young people are foregoing coming home.
In the United Kingdom, watchdog Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched an investigation into whether or not pricing for optional tests was excessive and exploitative.
They reported tests in the UK to cost around 75 pounds, or $146 NZD - a good $100 cheaper than tests in New Zealand.
The economies of scale of a larger country with greater capacity for medical services could explain this.
Last week, the CMA compelled test provider Randox to change their terms and conditions, making the details of the testing process clearer to customers.
Andrea Coscelli, chief executive of the CMA, said with changes to travel rules in the UK on the way, pre-departure testing was under the spotlight.
“Millions of people have to buy PCR tests in order to travel,” he said. “If we find that firms have been misleading customers and failing to provide the service that people have paid for, we stand ready to take action.”
However, most of the changes the CMA has brought forth in this sector have had to do with testing centres communicating with customers and more clearly explaining their liability.
It seems that price is still subject to the whims of supply and demand, and if punters are willing to pay a hefty sum for two minutes with a doctor, there isn’t much to stop the practice continuing.
Back in New Zealand, it’s yet another obstacle standing in the way for the airlines.
But perhaps it is financial stumbling blocks like these that will actually allow ‘flight shame’ to plant its roots on Kiwi soil. The concept didn’t have much time to flower before the pandemic came along and rendered it largely obsolete.
But although travel restrictions are forever poised to change and MIQ may be on its way out, pre-departure testing can be expected as an entry requirement in many places across the world for years to come.
