bensyd

it don't think it's realistic to expect people to spend 1-2 days in quarantine on their one week holiday, nor to expect them to have multiple pre-departure tests. The TT bubble will only work if NZ accepts that it may, unfortunately, import cases from Australia.

NZbutterfly

I think that would be up to individuals & families to decide but there are people that travel for a slightly extended weekend.
If you're going to reduce hotel isolation time though, you need to increase your lead in time for testing if you're going to do that safely.

Throwing open the floodgates is a stupid idea unless you're sure each state has it under control. I think this is largely the case but the next few weeks will be interesting given QLD is opening the border to NSW who just experienced an influx of people travelling from VIC. SA also had a smaller influx. There are essential workers travelling between states and I'm not sure they're undergoing routine testing. They should on a regular basis. Same system the mining sector introduced. Maybe not all mines but that's what has been in the papers. That's a sector that does not want a shutdown and reduction in productivity. But no business wants that really.

Anyway, my wish is that Australia as a whole has it under control and people can travel freely between both countries. Even if they limit it to business travellers initially to see how they go with a more manageable number of people (who tend to have fairly fixed itineraries) before opening it up to tourists. I think it's difficult to know which way it will go at the moment. State by state or wait for the whole country but I wouldn't be making any decisions over the next few weeks. Wait and see.

bensyd

I mean I just don't see people opting for a 2 day quarantine on arrival in NZ when they could holiday in Australia without the need for quarantine.

Yep. Something approaching normal would be nice.

DELee

Hoping for the best is unfortunately too brittle and prone to failure given the transmissibility, incubation and morbidity of the multiple virus strains in play. Not to mention the impact on acute health care networks.

Sooner or later, governments and health care systems and societies in each country, not just AU and NZ, are going to have to confront that they have to put real systems in place and live with living with this and other virii.

David

kiwifrequentflyer

So, something I know relevant groups have been working on, is the solution to have potential bubble international passengers separate from non bubble passengers in airports, especially Auckland Airport.

I am wondering if anyone has any ideas on what plans are being discussed for this or being proposed. Would it simply be, the same facilities get used, but just staggering flights? Curious if anyone knows, or has ideas.

cavemanzk

If International Arrivals numbers are to be capped at 50 passengers per flight, for the next while.

Don’t see why passengers from non-bubble destinations couldn’t be off-loaded at an remote stand in AKL, and taken directly to an temporary processing centre.

There isn’t really to much of an need for them to enter the main terminal building. After all the majority of passengers are citizens , and we do know who they are.

Customs operates in an temporary pop-up way for for cruise ships arrivals into Port of Auckland. Don’t see why that couldn’t be used the same process for arriving passengers at the moment. After all that equipment will be currently sitting in storage at the the moment.

Surely that there is an spare warehouse somewhere around the airport, that could be used for passenger processing. Or maybe even the old Jetstar Regional Terminal.

Another option is AKL, really still the best place to be allowing passengers from COVID hot spots to arrive at? Or should they say be directed to Airforce bases.

nzkarit

Air force bases don't have passenger facilities, don't have the cargo facilities, would have to relocate maintenance people, would then need to fly to AKL for outbound flight particularly if doing domestic or hanger maintenance.

Also currently the process seems to be working as been a while since a border staff member returned positive. So risk minimal. From what I understand it got in Melbourne because they did have a process & the security staff were sleeping with the people in isolation.

Also have any of our recent cases been linked back plane, airport or isolation? Or are they linked to origin country?

kiwifrequentflyer

From what I have been reading, it is difficult for contact tracing to truly link it back to planes or airports, given there is no way usually to tell if they had it before they got on the plane/airport or not. But I think the suspected transmission rate is lower internationally than what most people would have anticipated.

Would there be any need to socially distance departures? I know that we had that incident in Christchurch where people were unloaded from a flight due to leave to Australia and put on the next flight, and they were required to go into quarantine until the flight the next day.

cavemanzk

I maybe wrong but think it was an AKL-BNE flight that it happened on. The problem being that there was transit passengers onboard the aircraft that had started there journey in the USA. Hence they made all of the passengers onboard an potential contact.

Transit passengers will be the biggest issue, Once (if) the Tasman bubble starts. There will need to be flight on the Tasman that are only for transit passengers, and not passengers just travelling between Australia and New Zealand.

Point to Point transits in AKL, could be handled in Pier B. With that area being sealed off from other departures.

With RAR those flights could almost be called domestic......

kiwifrequentflyer

Oh no I am probably wrong, it was probably Auckland.

I was thinking that about RAR flights, haha. I am extremely doubtful that we would have a terrorist threat requiring the higher level of international security, but I am guessing there would be a legal reason you would need to leave from an international terminal? Although in the USA they mix them together.

samyoull

Minor nitpick but Ohakea and Air Movements Wellington can definitely handle passenger and cargo processing – it's not like many amenities are open in the terminals right now anyway...

samyoull

If the tasman bubble starts (not going to happen anytime soon given MEL) the logical way to do it would be for pax to do their two week isolation at first point of arrival into the bubble.

Dreaming here but this doesn't seem to be a bad time to do a Schengen style travel area for the trans-tasman and do away with (formal) customs/immigration altogether.

Often1

If there is one non-bubble passenger on a given aircraft, then all passengers (and crew) on that aircraft ought to be treated as though from outside the bubble. While most will not have had any form of contact with the non-bubble passenger, it is not logistically feasible to determine that in short order on arrival.

nzkarit

Do they have customs & mpi accredited cargo warehouses/ processing areas on site? Are they intergrated with the rest of New Zealand air cargo network?

Handling cargo is more than getting it on and off the plane.

Air Cargo is more important than ever right now.

Perk

In Wellington, New Zealand, I was hoping to be able to start flying at least to Australia sooner rather than later.

But since that seems to becoming a less and less likely possibility I built a website.

https://transtasmanbubble.com/

Does anyone have any thoughts? Maybe some more aircraft imagery? Still unsure what I want to do when I grow up...but maybe crypto currency day-trading?