International rescue: Air NZ boosts Oz flights
A Kiwi stuck in Sydney isn’t holding his breath that he’ll be able to get on a plane home, even after being lucky enough to snare a booking on a mercy dash flight from New South Wales.
Air New Zealand’s five flights from Sydney sold out within minutes after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday urged Kiwis to get home as the transtasman bubble snaps shut for eight weeks. The national carrier will jet people home between July 28 to August 7 and will put more flights on if there’s enough demand from Kiwis wanting to escape Australia’s worsening Covid outbreaks.
Just hours after revealing the flights from Sydney, the airline added two extra flights from Melbourne yesterday evening to help those in Victoria get back across the Ditch.
Customer general manager Leeanne Langridge said Air New Zealand appreciated some people would have missed out. “We would love to be able to bring more Kiwis home to their families, but we’re limited by the availability of MIQ spots.”
Shinji Davison, who had had three flights cancelled in his attempts to return to New Zealand from Sydney, received a frantic text from his
14-year-old son based in Aotearoa telling him to book a flight when yesterday’s announcement was made.
“To be honest, when I read my son’s text, I couldn’t believe what he was saying, that it was going to be closed for eight weeks.”
Fortunately, Davison was able to secure a space for him and his partner on a managed return flight on August
7 — but he wasn’t holding his breath. “I think I have a flight home but with what’s happened so far, I’m still really unsure.”
Another Kiwi stranded with his partner in New South Wales also felt extremely lucky to get a booking for one of the five Air New Zealand flights.
The Queenstown man, who did not want to be named, said within seconds of Ardern announcing there were flights from Australia to bring
people home, his daughter began trying to book a flight.
He said the message came back “sorry, taken” for two of the flights but his daughter was lucky to secure two tickets on the last flight on August 7. Five minutes later she went back online and found all the flights were sold out.
The man, aged 70 and retired, said he had been hundreds of miles from the red zone in Sydney for 31 days and could not see the need to go into managed isolation for 14 days.
It would be like having an outbreak of Covid 19 in Kaitaia and closing down Winton in Southland, he said.
In Victoria, travellers must have a negative pre-departure test and must isolate at home until a negative day 3 test.
Those who have been in NSW will still have to go into MIQ for 14 days.
Qantas has a number of flights operating over the next week between Australia and New Zealand that have tickets available. These include flights from Melbourne and Brisbane as early as today.