L’emotion was strong Monday among the first passengers who boarded the flights of the “bubble” now allowing to travel between Australia and New Zealand without having to perform quarantine on arrival.
Separated families, since the border was closed almost 400 days ago due to the Covid-19 pandemic, have thus been able to find each other.
“(I’m going to) scream, scream, cry, hug, kiss, (me) feel happy – all of that,” Denise O’Donoghue, 63, told AFP before to embark.
“This is a great day for families and their friends,” said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, praising the effective policy to fight the coronavirus in both countries which has made it possible to open this corridor. .
Before the pandemic, Australians made up the largest proportion of foreign tourists, 40%, visiting New Zealand, with around 1.5 million arrivals in 2019.
On the first day of the establishment of this corridor, most of the passengers were New Zealanders returning to their country.
Tourists are expected to be more numerous during the next school holidays in Australia, scheduled in a few weeks.
This event was the subject of extensive media coverage in both countries on Monday, with many direct televisions from airports.
The words “WELCOME WHANAU”, welcome family in the Maori language, were written in giant letters on an embankment near a runway at Wellington Airport.
For Lorraine Wratt, a New Zealander stranded by the pandemic while she was with her family in Australia, it is “great” to be able to travel again.
“We are very happy to be coming home, but our family (in Australia) will be sorely missed,” she said.
“We arrived in Australia on December 11 to spend Christmas with our children … we had planned to return in February, it was a bit of a nightmare.”
Prudence
Hundreds of thousands of expatriate New Zealanders live in Australia and, before the coronavirus, many regularly flew back to the archipelago. The journey takes three hours.
“It’s as if it was one big country, so it’s very good to open the borders, it will help all families”, welcomed Mehat El Masri while awaiting the arrival of her son Shady. . The latter lives in Sydney and had not seen him for 16 months.
“We are doing very well in New Zealand and Australia with precautions and keeping things under control … we are lucky compared to the rest of the world,” he told the AFP.
Mrs O’Donoghue had a feeling on Monday of a return to normal life, “I will go back, they will come”.
Craig Suckling, an executive at Air New Zealand, called the pre-departure atmosphere at Sydney Airport “electric”.
“It was a real emotional lift,” he said.
The airline’s chief executive, Greg Foran, called the day “historic” for those working in the hard hit tourism industry.
“(This is) a real turning point for the airline. This is the first day of our rebirth,” he said.
Australia is considering the possibility of creating travel “bubbles” with Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, while New Zealand is working to allow unrestricted access to small Pacific states such as the Cook Islands and Tuvalu.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison also raised the possibility that, by the end of 2021, Australians vaccinated against Covid-19 could travel abroad. On their return, they could thus observe a period of quarantine at home rather than being forced to stay two weeks in isolation in a hotel.
“The idea that everything opens one day, that’s not how it’s going to happen,” however tempered Mr. Morrison.
“It will be done in a prudent way, by working very hard on the medical and health measures”.
19/04/2021 07:53:55 – Sydney (AFP) – © 2021 AFP
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