The two countries’ airlines said they plan to ramp up flights once the arrangement comes into effect.
Though most Australian states have allowed quarantine-free visits from New Zealanders for months, New Zealand has continued mandatory quarantine from its neighbour, citing concern about small COVID-19 outbreaks there.
The virus has effectively been eradicated in both countries, with minor outbreaks a result of leakage from quarantined returned travellers.
“The Trans-Tasman travel bubble represents a start of a new chapter in our COVID response and recovery, one that people have worked so hard at,” Ardern told reporters in the New Zealand capital, Wellington.
One airline in India has hit upon a new way to make a bit of extra money while encouraging people back on planes sell them Covid-19 tests.
SpiceJet Ltd., India’s second-largest carrier, is offering coronavirus screening to passengers for as little as Rs 299 ($4). That’s about one-third the current market rate. SpiceHealth, the unit selling the tests, has also set up mobile-testing facilities for the general public in Mumbai and New Delhi, where starting from Rs 499, people can come in or have a sample collected from their home. Although aviation in India, with its big domestic market, is recovering faster than in places like Singapore and Hong Kong, which have no local business to speak of, the impact of the pandemic is still being felt. No-frills carrier SpiceJet posted a net loss of Rs 57 crore in the quarter ended Dec. 31 compared with a profit of Rs 73.2 crore a year earlier.