Australia Closed until Late 2022

[MscleLovr]

Some possible good news for would-be travelers to (and from) Australia.

I had a email from Qantas on Monday stating that they hope to resume flights mid-December 2021 between Australia and Singapore, Japan, the US, the UK and Canada. Further routes are planned up to mid-April 2022. 

As is to be expected, Qantas says this will be dependent on Government decisions in the months ahead. 

[mike carey]

1 hour ago, MscleLovr said:

Some possible good news for would-be travelers to (and from) Australia.

I had a email from Qantas on Monday stating that they hope to resume flights mid-December 2021 between Australia and Singapore, Japan, the US, the UK and Canada. Further routes are planned up to mid-April 2022. 

As is to be expected, Qantas says this will be dependent on Government decisions in the months ahead. 

It is hopeful news, the more so if they sent you an e-mail about it, although if you're a QF FF member it may have just been their routine comms with members. The Qantas announcement was what I referred to last Friday (on the previous page of this thread), with a link to the sceptical OMAAT article about it.

Since I replied to you, the odds of opening up sooner rather than later, although not before Qantas' target date, have improved. Vaccination rates have accelerated, especially in NSW and the ACT, and to some extent in Victoria. Delta is also proving difficult to contain and today the Victorian government acknowledged that they are unlikely to be able to get that genie back in the bottle. They, and NSW are likely soon to conclude that keeping borders closed to vaccinated travellers won't have a material effect on the rates of cases or of hospitalisation. Vaccination rates are still to low for them to contemplate border easing but it's not too far off.

[mike carey]

Another data point on our journey towards being able to leave the country at will. The federal Tourism Minister, Dan Tehan, was on the Sunday morning show on Sky News, and told people to check their passports and renew them if they had expired. He suggested moving quickly, citing huge delays at US and UK passport offices. He said that international travel would be permitted when 80% of the eligible population (16 and over) was fully vaccinated. That's probably six to eight weeks off, and the supply of doses and rate of vaccination are both increasing (c 1.4% of the total population each day). (NSW and the ACT are both at about 75% first jab and 50% second, with fewer doses in the other jurisdictions.)

Leaving and returning to the country are both federal decisions, but it's the states that set quarantine requirements for people entering them, including international arrivals, so they have the final say. I suspect NSW will have reduced or no quarantine for vaccinated arrivals, but our zero-case states and territories will not (and will continue to quarantine or prohibit arrivals from NSW).

[Bargara Leatherboy]

On 9/1/2021 at 9:37 PM, mike carey said:

It is hopeful news, the more so if they sent you an e-mail about it, although if you're a QF FF member it may have just been their routine comms with members. The Qantas announcement was what I referred to last Friday (on the previous page of this thread), with a link to the sceptical OMAAT article about it.

Since I replied to you, the odds of opening up sooner rather than later, although not before Qantas' target date, have improved. Vaccination rates have accelerated, especially in NSW and the ACT, and to some extent in Victoria. Delta is also proving difficult to contain and today the Victorian government acknowledged that they are unlikely to be able to get that genie back in the bottle. They, and NSW are likely soon to conclude that keeping borders closed to vaccinated travellers won't have a material effect on the rates of cases or of hospitalisation. Vaccination rates are still to low for them to contemplate border easing but it's not too far off.

My take on this that this is a marketing ploy.

Thousands of people have booked flights from December, people are dreaming of a white Christmas with their extended families in Europe, or an Asian holiday, or spending NYE in Las Vegas.

Meanwhile all those $$ or cashed  in points are helping out the bottom line of Qantas.

It will be a different story when the govt still has the borders closed at the end of the year, and QF has to do something but  credits and dragging out the refund of $$ or points will happen.

 

Its just magic accounting 

 

 

[+ tassojunior]

 

 

[mike carey]

7 hours ago, tassojunior said:

 

 

We are making a lot of progress on first doses, but it will be longer before we get close to the US on fully vaccinated. A higher percentage of people in the US have had their second does and they had significant numbers of J&J which is one-shot. Figures vary between states with the current four zero-case states having fewer vaccinated people. The stat that appears on the evening news here is the percentage of the population 16 or over that is vaccinated (doses only became available for 12-15 recently) and NSW and the ACT are in the high 80s first doses and low 60s second. Queensland and WA are about 20 points behind on both counts. Yesterday (Sunday) 2% of the ACT (total) population received a vaccine.

To the topic of the thread, we are on track for the SE corner of the country being at least partially open to the world (T&C apply), with the rest of the country closed to the world and to us. NSW and Victoria are talking about a big relaxation of internal restrictions but only to fully vaccinated people until at least early December. The ACT plans to reduce restriction, but more modesty, however the chief minister expects our vaccination rate to be high enough for them not to need to treat unvaccinated people differently.

[mike carey]

Well, this is all very sudden, one could be forgiven for thinking the prime minister wants to demonstrate progress before election time. Morrison announced today that the ban on vaccinated Australians travelling overseas will end on 14 Nov, and caps on vaccinated Australians returning to the country will be lifted. No news on when foreign travellers will be free to come here.

The details on whether there will be limits on places we can go have not been announced, nor whether there will be different rules for arrivals who've been in different countries, as happens elsewhere. The trigger for whether this will happen on 14 Nov or be moved forward or back will be one state reaching 80% of its eligible population (≥16) being fully vaccinated, which on current projections will be NSW (the ACT might get there first, but there are no international flights here). Additional states can open up as they reach that threshold. Returning travellers who are vaccinated will no longer have to enter 14 days' supervised quarantine but will instead, for now at least, have to home quarantine for seven days. Details are subject to confirmation, including whether domestic connecting travel to a place of residence will be permitted, or if it has to be in the port of arrival. For travel purposes, Sinovac and the Indian-manufactured AZ will be recognised as well as the ones already approved here.

Qantas had been selling international tickets to a limited number of destinations from 21 Dec, and within a couple of hours had announced (and had available for sale on their web site) three weekly return B787 flights each to London via Darwin, and LAX non-stop (all seats in all classes are available as award tickets) from 14 Nov. Fares are about precovid normal in Y. Qantas will require a negative PCR test within 72 hours of departure irrespective of destination country requirements (from 4 Oct the UK won't).

All very promising, but it's still a bit too early for me to be booking flights yet, I want to make sure that it's working smoothly before I do that.

[MscleLovr]

I too was surprised at the reopening. It’s definitely good news for expats and Aussies who have been stranded overseas.
 

The BBC reported that the Federal government had said it was “working towards welcoming tourists back”. Personally I won’t visit until all the States reopen their internal borders as I like to travel around when I visit Australia. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-58757888
 

I wonder how Aussies will react when/if, even at 80% vaccinated, COVID cases surge. The UK is at 90% vaccinated but the number of cases increases daily - of course, those hospitalised are overwhelmingly the unvaccinated. 

Edited October 1, 2021 by MscleLovr
typo

[Alex93108]

Called my travel agent who books my travel ( I use them for  more high end stuff). Had this pipe dream of going to Sydney and Auckland at the end of this year. Naturally all the flights cancelled, so I was able to get my money back ( in the thousands, these were business class tickets)

I have money to spend, if the the Aussies and Kiwi's don't want it, its their loss…...

 

Edited October 1, 2021 by jetlow

[mike carey]

More baby steps today. The new NSW premier (who was always a more 'open it up' guy than his predecessor) has announced that NSW will not require hotel or home quarantine for fully vaccinated travellers arriving from overseas from 1 November, and that there will be no cap on such arrivals. They will have to return a negative PCR test before travelling. There will be a cap applied to unvaccinated travellers, including those vaccinated with a vaccine not recognised by the TGA (such as Sputnik).

While he said it would apply to arrivals irrespective of citizenship he acknowledged that the federal government still decides who is eligible to travel here. The PM subsequently said that they would not yet open the country to essential workers, students or tourists (and the plan remains to phase in those arrivals). The only relaxation of arrival rules will be to extend the 'immediate family of Australian citizens and permanent residents' to include their parents as well as partners and children.

[mike carey]

As @Epigonos noted in the Palm Springs Weekend thread, Australia will be opening its borders to foreign travellers from 21 February. Nobody is expecting a rush, but Qantas, at least, is bringing forward its plans to resume flying to many destinations, and possibly bringing forward plans to operate some new routes. They anticipate a fair volume of overseas based VFR traffic, in much the same way that Australian based VFR passengers jumped at the chance to travel late last year when Australians were allowed to leave the country (new routes to Delhi sold out in record time, and they had record redemptions of flight rewards).

Qantas has already resumed flying A380s on the Sydney to Los Angeles route and will resume flying Sydney to DFW in a couple of weeks (using B787s not A380s). They are also considering bringing forward San Francisco flights from their current planned July resumption. Elsewhere, they plan to resume flights to Rome after almost 20 years.

The one part of the country not open is Western Australia, which remains effectively closed not just to foreigners but also to Eastern Staters. WA's closed borders mean that non-stop flights from Perth to London are leaving from Darwin.

Prospective travellers must be double vaccinated and have a negative PCR test within 72 hours of their scheduled flight departure, or a negative RAT (also referred to as a lateral flow test) conducted under medical supervision within 24 hours of scheduled departure and certified as negative by a medical practitioner.

VFR = visiting friends and relatives, not visual flight rules.