Australia’s federal government will lift its ban on citizens travelling to other countries without exemptions, the government announced on Wednesday. A day later, the federal government’s blanket “Do not travel” advisory warning for Australians not to leave the country was lifted.
Airlines have already announced tens of thousands of extra seats on new services into Australia following the government’s announcement to end quarantine.
Kon Kavalakis of Grecian Tours told Neos Kosmos that no sooner were the announcements made that people started showing an interest in travelling, and “they are asking general questions” about flights with the focus being predominantly on travel for next year.
“They are calling our office and asking: ‘Are flights available?’ ‘Are airlines flying to Greece?’ and the answer to all these questions is ‘yes’,” Mr Kavalakis said.
READ MORE: Changes to travel advisory ahead of the opening of borders
For someone wanting to fly out immediately, Mr Kavalakis said that this could be made possible however warned that availability of return flights could be a “bit of a problem”, bearing in mind that there are still around 40,000 Australians who are stranded abroad and need to return back to Australia.
“They’ve got priority,” Mr Kavalakis said, adding that the announcements were just made in the last week and there were still a number of considerations which airlines need to make.
“We’ve been told that if you’re fully vaccinated you can travel. I believe that family members will be seated together without distancing once travel commences and masks may need to be worn indoors initially,” he contemplated, adding that regulations would probably vary regarding the case load in each country and the vaccination requirements.
For Christmas, Mr Kavalakis said “a lot is in progress but we will see what is happening in the next week or so”, not ruling out a trip to Singapore, Bali or Fiji over summer.
The good news is that the border will open for fully vaccinated Australian citizens from Monday after 18 months of closure as international travel slowly becomes reality. As for the unvaccinated, airlines have yet to decide how they will comply with new rules for the 210 unvaccinated passengers a week which NSW will accept and 250 per week for Victoria.
