Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has announced that the country will allow international travel from November, but only for citizens and permanent residents.
At a press conference on Friday, 1 October, Mr Morrison said the reopening would occur when individual states hit an 80 per cent threshold of vaccination, beginning with NSW.
Under the plan, Australians and permanent residents who are fully vaccinated will be able to travel abroad and complete a 7-day quarantine at home on their return.
People who are not vaccinated will be required to undertake 14 days of quarantine at a hotel when they return.
All passengers must also provide a negative PCR test within 72 hours of departure.
Australia sealed its borders on March 20, 2020, with Australians not allowed to leave the country except under exceptional circumstances. Over 40,000 Australian citizens have been stranded abroad since then, most unable to return home.
Flight Schedule
Qantas had put flights to major overseas destinations on sale from December 18, but today 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 only international services Qantas has operated during the pandemic have been government-funded repatriation flights.
Other carriers, including Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Etihad, have been operating flights but under strict passenger caps determined by hotel quarantine capacity, which effectively meant that many flights had as few as 10 passengers.
International Visitors
Mr Morrison gave no indication of when international visitors would be allowed into the country, other than to say that the government was working “towards welcoming tourists back to our shores” and that “next year, we’ll be in a very different place again.”
