Australia will resume international travel a month earlier than planned.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced that the international borders will reopen in November for states that have vaccinated 80 per cent of their adult populations, which New South Wales will achieve later this month. Fully vaccinated outbound travellers and Australians currently stranded overseas will be able to complete seven days home quarantine on their return.
A plan is being developed to reopen to overseas visitors as well, although it is recognised that this will require scrapping all quarantine requirements. No date for this has been announced. However, Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration has confirmed it will recognise the Sinovac and Covishield vaccines as acceptable, along with those it has approved for Australian use.
But with Western Australia proposing to keep even state borders shut, the decision means Australians are likely to be able to fly to Paris before they can travel to Perth.
Qantas had put flights to major overseas destinations on sale from December 18, but on Friday afternoon said it would bring that forward in light of the Prime Minister's announcement, with three weekly return flights from Sydney to London and Los Angeles from November 14.
The airline’s strategy sees its first flights serving some North American, UK and Asia routes, with an initial focus on destinations with high vaccination rates including the US, UK, Singapore and Japan.
Flights to destinations that still have low vaccine rates and high levels of COVID-19 infection, such as Bali, Indonesia, and the Philippines are not likely to resume until April 2022.
Significantly, the strategy also flags it may use Darwin instead of Perth for its non-stop flights to London as a result of Western Australia’s “conservative border policies” which have kept the state isolated from the rest of Australia for the majority of the pandemic.
Other states currently all have different border rules but with the exception of Western Australia have agreed to a national plan that will remove all restrictions when 80 per cent of Australians have been vaccinated against COVID, estimated to be sometime next month.
Image: Parliament House Canberra, by Judy Barford
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