Predictions of when international flights may resume/bans lifted

[p--and--t]

I saw Andrews in his press conference Tuesday say he was going to request Scomo for flights into MEL to be diverted elsewhere for a while. Didn't hear more.

MEL doesn't look shut to inbound international to me. FR24 lists UL, GA and CX flights arrived this morning, and QR expected this evening.

Cheers skip

"Flights aren't technically being "diverted" away from Victoria.
Many airlines have simply cancelled their flights to Melbourne or changed them to cargo-only services until July 14."

Melbourne flights are being diverted, so what if you need to travel?

International passengers who were due to fly into Melbourne soon are scrambling to make other plans after Victoria announced it would not accept any people who would need to enter hotel quarantine for the next two weeks.

www.abc.net.au

 

[PineappleSkip]

I see.. UL, CX and GA weren't cancelled, but seat map hints no PAX. QR904 is inflight over the Indian ocean ATM and EF is showing occupied seats. Although they're all sitting in J and I'm wondering if they're deadheading crew. That would be a jolly flight!

 

[Pushka]

I saw Andrews in his press conference Tuesday say he was going to request Scomo for flights into MEL to be diverted elsewhere for a while. Didn't hear more.

MEL doesn't look shut to inbound international to me. FR24 lists UL, GA and CX flights arrived this morning, and QR expected this evening.

Cheers skip

That's what I thought too and SA started to prepare for several flights this week. The Prof Spurrier announced that she had received a text saying that arrangement was cancelled and was not told the reason why.

 

[p--and--t]

I hear Christmas Island is lovely this time of year, send them there if need be

It's interesting that $100Ms were spent on reopening Christmas Island and prep'Ing the mining residential village in NT and then both abandoned as solutions after one use. I guess they became federally politically untenable when the forecast deaths and disaster didn't eventuate. No facts but presume hotel solution is an order of magnitude cheaper and more palatable media wise until some security guards go rogue.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

It's interesting that $100Ms were spent on reopening Christmas Island and prep'Ing the mining residential village in NT and then both abandoned as solutions after one use. I guess they became federally politically untenable when the forecast deaths and disaster didn't eventuate. No facts but presume hotel solution is an order of magnitude cheaper and more palatable media wise until some security guards go rogue.

$200 a night, by 14 nights, by something like 10,000 returning travelers? That comes to $28 million. And I guess some of those will be sharing rooms.

 

[p--and--t]

I see.. UL, CX and GA weren't cancelled, but seat map hints no PAX. QR904 is inflight over the Indian ocean ATM and EF is showing occupied seats. Although they're all sitting in J and I'm wondering if they're deadheading crew. That would be a jolly flight!

For clarity, from ABC reports

For fourteen days overseas arrivals that may require hotel quarantine will not be accepted into MEL.

DFAT is limiting the number of overseas arrivals into SYD to 50 per flight to ensure quarantine hotels are not over run. It is not a 50 per day limit into SYD. The daily cap is 450 international quarantine arrivals into SYD.

ABC : International arrivals capped at Sydney Airport to ease quarantine demands

 

[p--and--t]

$200 a night, by 14 nights, by something like 10,000 returning travelers? That comes to $28 million. And I guess some of those will be sharing rooms.

Wow, I just saw a report from NSW that so far >32,000 have been through hotel quarantine, by inference just NSW, although not explicitly stated.

Many of them couples & families, but still significant numbers of rooms.

The national figure must be a multiple of that.

Probably still cheaper than the NT solution as it would have running costs and the cost of carting people there & back

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Wow, I just saw a report from NSW that so far >32,000 have been through hotel quarantine, by inference just NSW, although not explicitly stated.

Many of them couples & families, but still significant numbers of rooms.

The national figure must be a multiple of that.

Probably still cheaper than the NT solution as it would have running costs and the cost of carting people there & back

Those are huge figures!

But IIRC there was also some huge cost in chartering flights to Christmas Island? And while the facility prolly took $100m to reopen, I bet you there was a huge daily charge per person too?

 

[Melburnian1]

For clarity, from ABC reports

For fourteen days overseas arrivals that may require hotel quarantine will not be accepted into MEL.

DFAT is limiting the number of overseas arrivals into SYD to 50 per flight to ensure quarantine hotels are not over run. It is not a 50 per day limit into SYD. The daily cap is 450 international quarantine arrivals into SYD.

ABC : International arrivals capped at Sydney Airport to ease quarantine demands

Indeed. Here's a new brief report on the 'SMh' website:


'International arrivals into Sydney airport will be capped at 450 people per day as the city faces pressure on its capacity to quarantine returned travellers.

The limit comes into effect at midnight tonight and will last until July 17, with the possibility of extension.

It also restricts each incoming flight to a maximum of 50 passengers.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Smart Traveller website says the Victorian government’s request to pause all international passenger flights into Melbourne for two weeks had placed pressure on Sydney’s quarantine facilities.'

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Wow, I just saw a report from NSW that so far >32,000 have been through hotel quarantine, by inference just NSW, although not explicitly stated.

Many of them couples & families, but still significant numbers of rooms.

The national figure must be a multiple of that.

Probably still cheaper than the NT solution as it would have running costs and the cost of carting people there & back

Well this was numbers as of 18th June. Total through hotel quarantine by then was 63,000. Is higher now.

When you adjust for population and assuming that people from SA travelled overseas prorata, then SA is the main state that is unders prorata of returnees by that date.

NSW, NT and TAS is overs, Vic basically exactly prorata and other states unders. WA only slightly unders though.

State/territory	Total quarantined	In quarantine as of last week
NSW	25,188	3,699
Vic	15,814	2,497
QLD	9,636	1,538
Tas	2,793	232
WA	5,971	841
NT	2,343	208
ACT	521	296
SA	867	17

Three months ago it was unthinkable. Now 60,000 Australians have undergone forced quarantine

More than 63,000 people returning to Australia have been taken by police or military escort into forced quarantine since the policy was implemented two-and-a-half months ago.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Pushka]

Well this was numbers as of 18th June. Total through hotel quarantine by then was 63,000. Is higher now.

When you adjust for population and assuming that people from SA travelled overseas prorata, then SA is the main state that is unders prorata of returnees by that date.

NSW, NT and TAS is overs, Vic basically exactly prorata and other states unders. WA only slightly unders though.

State/territory	Total quarantined	In quarantine as of last week
NSW	25,188	3,699
Vic	15,814	2,497
QLD	9,636	1,538
Tas	2,793	232
WA	5,971	841
NT	2,343	208
ACT	521	296
SA	867	17

Three months ago it was unthinkable. Now 60,000 Australians have undergone forced quarantine

More than 63,000 people returning to Australia have been taken by police or military escort into forced quarantine since the policy was implemented two-and-a-half months ago.

www.abc.net.au

What does the 17 on 18 June mean for SA? I didn't think we had any on that date. We now have around 500 and another batch arriving Tuesday.

Tasmania? With no international airport? I wonder the source of the figures.

 

[PineappleSkip]

Well I’m not aware of any international flights into Tasmania, so doesn’t look like international arrivee numbers by port of arrival. A couple of possibilities in the split of numbers

• The numbers by state include interstate quarantines (Tas has govt accom quarantine for some)
• People are being allocated by state of residence rather than state of arrival. I think they classify cases this way but haven’t heard of that for quaros.

cheers skip

 

[drron]

Tasmania did forced quarantine on anyone from interstate plus for a while even their own citizens returning from interstate.
Basically apart from a rare OS arrival given an exemption on compassionate grounds their figure is virtually all domestic travellers.
I was involved with 1 case where a man from NZ was given a compassioate exemption as his father was dying..Had to fly AKL-SYD-MEL-LST.Was escorted through the Aussie airports and was put into hotel quarantine on arrival into LST but escorted to the hospital.

 

[Pushka]

Tasmania did forced quarantine on anyone from interstate plus for a while even their own citizens returning from interstate.
Basically apart from a rare OS arrival given an exemption on compassionate grounds their figure is virtually all domestic travellers.
I was involved with 1 case where a man from NZ was given a compassioate exemption as his father was dying..Had to fly AKL-SYD-MEL-LST.Was escorted through the Aussie airports and was put into hotel quarantine on arrival into LST but escorted to the hospital.

So those figures don't portray international arrivals into quarantine and may represent something completely different. And a mish mash of everything.

 

[jakeseven7]

So those figures don't portray international arrivals into quarantine and may represent something completely different. And a mish mash of everything.

Agreed and it doesn’t matter regardless, we should be looking at airport capacity, hotel capacity, borderforce capacity, current capacity of the state health government depts to manage numbers at the moment etc - general indicators linked to the states ability to handle more quarantine numbers.

That can be used to determine which states have the ability to help and take some of the heavy lifting from NSW and VIC.

Who cares about the population comparisons

I suspect states like SA and WA may have issues in their capability in processing more numbers maybe that is why they have gone quiet?

 

[jakeseven7]

I think we would be happy to help out but we don’t have a huge hotel availability or capacity to take the members that MEL had.

Of course not in absolute terms there is no comparison with Syd and Mel, but hotels in SA and WA have all been on the news saying they are virtually empty (no surprises there with zero tourism / zero business travel) so I’m sure there is some capacity that can be utilised. Bne too. Also, why not Cns? International airport, zero tourists....

EDIT: Actually why not OOL as well.... I know their international OPS are a little limited but hotels aplenty! And mostly empty!

 

[I love to travel]

Just a note about Brisbane CBD accommodation, not as many hotels as you might think compared to other big cities. Tourists use Brisbane as gateway to other areas in Qld.

 

[Pushka]

I suspect states like SA and WA may have issues in their capability in processing more numbers maybe that is why they have gone quiet?

SA was expecting several flights this week due to the original Melbourne situation but the Head of Health said the other day she'd received a text saying they had been cancelled. No reason given. We had a flight a week ago, one yesterday and another one due in this Tuesday. It is up to the Federal Govt it seems as to who flies where.

 

[jakeseven7]

Just a note about Brisbane CBD accommodation, not as many hotels as you might think compared to other big cities. Tourists use Brisbane as gateway to other areas in Qld.

I live in Brisbane and often organise events here with big numbers of people flying in, trust me there are a lot of empty beds... which is really sad for the operators of course. Serviced apartments especially. But I do agree, it is in general underdeveloped compared to other cities.

 

[oznflfan]

I'm starting to feel a little less pessimistic on being able to travel overseas. I think Victoria will sort itself out by middle to end of this month to give us confidence to (re)commence full state openings. WA will of course be last, and 31st August hard borders will fall. My new predictions are:

26th September 2020: New Zealand.

1st December 2020: Fiji + Vanuatu (and some other Pacific Nations).

1st March 2021: Selected Asian countries including but not limited to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam

1st June 2021: All of Europe Schengen Zone.

Others tba