Millions spent to bring home stranded Kiwis
The Government has spent more than $6 million bringing home New Zealanders who were stranded overseas at the start of the pandemic.
Between January and April 2020, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade chartered several mercy flights from places like Wuhan in China, India and Peru.
The Government underwrote and subsidised the charters, and passengers were charged a flat fee depending on the duration of the flight.
The total cost of the repatriation flights would be offset by those passenger contributions, MFAT said in its response to an Official Information Act request.
In an April 2020 paper, thenForeign Minister Winston Peters’ office said the charter flights would cost $1500 per person for up to four hours, $3500 for 4 to 14 hours, and $5500 for over 14 hours.
That same paper estimated it could cost up to $14m to get New Zealanders home from high-risk countries.
All up, the Government has now helped repatriate more than 6000 people from 38 countries, on charter, commercial and defence force flights.
Last year, the Government chartered three flights to bring people home from India. Ten flights were also offered by Air India, and there were options for people to return on third country repatriation flights, and a commercially operated private charter flight from South India.
There have been growing calls for the Government to organise more flights from India, as Covid-19 infection rates soar and the health system there is overwhelmed.
Commercial flights out of India have been cancelled or heavily restricted, causing headaches for
people trying to flee.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said the lack of commercial flights was likely to be temporary, but officials are monitoring the situation. – RNZ
■ Former Black Caps captains Brendon McCullum and Stephen Fleming were among the second group of cricketers to touch down in Auckland yesterday after their departure from India.
McCullum, Fleming, fellow IPL coach Kyle Mills, Black Caps fast bowler Lockie Ferguson, commentators Simon Doull and Scott Styris, and umpire Chris Gaffaney landed at Auckland Airport about 6pm.
All wearing masks, the cricketers disembarked from the Vistajet private plane which flew via Tokyo after the IPL was suspended last week when three of the eight teams recorded positive tests in their ranks.
One of those was the McCullum-coached Kolkata Knight Riders, whose Black Caps wicketkeeper Tim Seifert was confirmed as having tested positive on Saturday.
Seifert remained in India after he failed both his pre-departure tests and was taken into quarantine, New Zealand Cricket confirmed, adding he was experiencing moderate symptoms.
India’s BCCI and some IPL franchises footed the bill for the two charter flights, NZC confirmed.