The Government's asked Air New Zealand to temporarily halt inbound bookings into the country as quarantine facilities get filled to overflowing.
A statement issued by the Government gave no indication of how long the halt on bookings would last for, only that it would be "short term".
The Government says it's also talking to other airlines about managing the flow of people into the country.
There's currently 28 quarantine/isolation facilities up and running, with plans to add capacity for another 750 people in coming weeks.
The numbers of those arriving into the country in recent weeks has continued to increase, with 5,697 people currently in managed isolation and quarantine.
Over 26,400 people have been through managed isolation and quarantine since 26 March.
Housing Minister Megan Woods said on Tuesday that bookings for seats on Air New Zealand flights into New Zealand "will be managed in the short term to ensure the Government is able to safely place New Zealanders arriving home into a managed isolation or quarantine facility".
Woods said she and Air Commodore Darryn Webb, who is in charge of the quarantine facilities, met last week with Air New Zealand’s chief executive Greg Foran to "discuss safe and robust ways to jointly manage the big growth in New Zealanders coming home".
“Air New Zealand has agreed to put a temporary hold on new bookings in the short term, as well as looking at aligning daily arrivals with the capacity available at managed isolation facilities," she said.
Woods said people who have already booked flights with Air New Zealand will still be able to enter New Zealand "subject to availability of quarantine space".
“We have seen similar moves in Australia, where passenger numbers into Sydney have been limited following the suspension of flights into Melbourne because of the surge in Covid cases in Victoria. They too are having to manage the flow of people into the country to match availability of managed isolation beds."
Woods said the country was seeing "rapid growth" in the numbers of New Zealanders coming home as the Covid-19 pandemic worsens.
“Our number one priority is stopping the virus at the border, so everyone must to go into quarantine or managed isolation. The Government is also talking to other airlines about managing flows.
“The last thing we need are hastily set up facilities to meet demand, so we must have a manageable number of fit-for-purpose, safe facilities that do the job of stopping Covid at the border."
Air Commodore Webb said there were 28 managed isolation facilities, and they were "scaling up more spaces all the time".
"...But we need to do so safely and new facilities need to be watertight before they are opened."
"Standing up new capacity at the required levels for people to stay in for 14 days of isolation is a hugely complex undertaking; it needs appropriate levels of health and other services near by, New Zealand Defence Force personnel and extra security to ensure that people are looked after properly and the risk of COVID getting out into the community is minimised.
“These temporary measures will ease the current demand on facilities while additional supply is brought on line.
"In the past three weeks we have brought on capacity of 10 new facilities for 2,000 more people, and have a plan to bring on another 750 places in the coming weeks.
“The pause on new bookings will be short-term, and allows us to increase supply to match forecasted demand over the coming weeks.
“We are closely monitoring the situation and working with Air New Zealand to smooth demand and ensure returnees can be safely housed in managed isolation facilities,” Webb said.
56 Comments
My point is that there is no "best system" - every and each of us ( myself included ) will have an opinion on what is should be - that others will find completely unfair . We cannot and should not try to create citizenship classes of the fly.
This leaves a ballot as the least bad solution.
Exactly right. Actually, I would modify the current immigration laws:
- if you get permanent residency, this is deemed a "temporary citizenship"
- once you get it, you must live in NZ and pay taxes for at least 3 years out of the next 5
- once the 5 years have passed, you have 1 year to acquire NZ citizenship (subject to good character requirements), otherwise your permanent residency expires automatically
A casual scan of the commentary on this site shows that weeks ago there was a widespread understanding that this was going to be an issue that required a solution. It seems however not to have occurred to this transparently transformational government which apart from the decision to go full noise lockdown has been mostly reactive.
Exactly. It's easy to come up with ideas. The difficult part is always in the details - planning, organisation and implementation. Reminds me of all the 'business type' geniuses on various programming forums looking for programmers to implement their revolutionary ideas for "a share of the profits". Ideas like "facebook but better", "google but better" etc.
Yeah, so when did the government come up with this plan for rationing?
You're just hearing about it in the media now - because it's required now. That doesn't mean the government weren't thinking about it 6 weeks ago.
There was a whole bunch of documents released about the government's COVID preparations recently. I guess you can sift through those and then tell us that the government had not thought about this until this week, since you're convinced that's the case.
I mean what's more likely: that the government who has hundreds of people whose full time job is to think about these things (and who have been managing hundreds of aspects and details about the COVID-19 response that you have no clue about at all), didn't have this idea cross any of their minds at all in the last 6 weeks but some random commentors on interest.co.nz did, or that you simply didn't hear anything about this until this week because it hasn't been necessary until this week?
Probably they've been talking to Air NZ about this for several weeks already.
Apparently he thinks the government should be announcing some preparations they have for COVID weeks in advance of needing them. Apparently he doesn't understand how important clear, concise and relevant communication is and thinks the government should just overwhelm us with lots of information about stuff that is not yet relevant.
No, they did not want to warn anyone about the ensuing problems or hint that travel from Australia on the only available carrier AIRNZ may be restricted. Otherwise, they would have had a flood of future bookings from returning New Zealanders. Which they would have needed to honour. So they just halted bookings with no notice and informed the public via the media this morning.
Perhaps someone jumping the fence flicked the switch?
The government can only do so much and it relies on compliance.
We have laws that prohibit speeding, for instance, and yet they are broken every day. That isn't the fault of Government, but those who break the rules.
They haven't broken any rules. But every time you leave the country you carry a slight risk that re entry may be difficult. Eyjafjallajokull or Tambora may erupt, 911 could shut down travel, Chernobyl 2 might spawn a deadly cloud. They chose to not stay safe at home of their own fee will. As will I as soon as I'm allowed out but you won't hear any bleating from me if I get stuck somewhere.
OK. As you can probably tell I have my kickers in a bit of twist over the snivelling whingers complaining about limits to our ability to cope with excess demand in this major crisis. One of the very few capable ministers Ardern has is now running the show with mercifully the previous incompetent dads army led by a captain mainwaring copper now put out to pasture. We are doing our best but its clear there are capacity limits. So, really, time to give the bleating a rest and wait your turn.
Stopping Air NZ bookings has the effect of mostly halting NZ residents returning ex Australia. But Meanwhile foreign flag carriers wide-body flights can continue to arrive en masse. Assume the government have no way of controlling passenger numbers on those flights. We granted the landing rights so we just need to deal with those who turn up. It's a seller's market for airfares with demand in both directions. So can't blame the airlines for wanting to make some much-needed cash.
Contrarian. An issue with that is credibility of testing in other countries where corruption is widespread and certificates for just about anything can be bought. EG following the recent Pakistan plane crash it emerged that one third of all Pakistan airlines pilots had paid someone else to sit their qualifying test and that invigilators has likely also been complicit.
Granted that. Still the majority would have the genuine test and we can cut down the need to crisis manage here.
I think Germany has this in place, with speedy tests done at the airport, albeit for a charge of DM150 or so.
This will make the other passengers and the air crew feel safe.
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