Tag Archives for australia.
A woman picked up a Subway sandwich in the Singapore airport before her flight to Perth, Australia. She only ate half of it – and for some reason brought the leftovers with her. Perhaps she wanted to find out first hand just how sick an unrefrigerated fast food sandwich will make you after a five hour flight.
She failed to declare the remains of her foot long at customs when she arrived back in Australia, and was fined ~ US$1750.
Air Canada business class awards between North America and Australia are wide open most of the time beginning in June through October. You’ll find most dates have availability for four or more passengers flying Vancouver – Sydney.
Now, with substantial background immunity in additional to vaccination, the country is preparing to re-open its borders to tourists. The nation’s Prime Minister has announced a February 21 re-opening to tourism.
I’m looking forward to visiting family in Australia and they’re excited to now be allowed to leave to country and visit the States. I don’t vape but I’ve been keeping abreast of changing rules for travelers entering the country and this seemed worth passing along – especially since it’s a new change since most people have been permitted to go there.
Australia’s federal government controls who is admissible to the country. Each state within Australia controls its quarantine procedures, and also whether each state is open to travel from other states.
And an announcement by the Premier of New South Wales, Australia (where Sydney is located) has thrown the country into something of disarray.
Australia says it will re-open to the world starting in November but that’s not really true. There’s no timeline, even a rough one, for non-residents of the country to return.
What they’re doing for now is lifting the ban on Australians leaving the country, and working towards allowing Australians who return to forcibly quarantine – but to do so at home rather than in state-managed facilities.
Australia sent soldiers to Afghanistan to rescue refugees and they aren’t being allowed to return home due to Covid-19 protocols. The country only allows a limited number of ‘state quarantine’ beds each day, there’s a give figure backlog of Australians who have been stranded abroad for the duration of the pandemic and have been reserving beds. As a result these soldiers are stuck in Dubai, waiting for “a special exemption to quarantine in the hotel system” from the state of Queensland.
Qantas announced plans for the re-start of its international route network, beginning on December. That planned seemed crazy with the country facing an upswing in Covid-19 cases – more than they’ve seen at any point in the pandemic – and what once seemed like an idyllic refuge from the global pandemic now seems like a dystopian science fiction film.
Australia is caught in a bind. They managed the early stage of the pandemic well, so well that they’ve backed themselves into a corner haven’t had an end game. Lockdowns have increased, frustrations have grown, and citizens haven’t been able to travel abroad – and often even domestically – for a year and a half.
Against this backdrop Qantas has a new commercial: get vaccinated and maybe the government will let you leave the country. I cried watching this.
JetBlue appears to be hiring an airport supervisor for… Brisbane, Australia. There are multiple people on LinkedIn identifying themselves in administrative roles working for the airline in Brisbane already. While JetBlue doesn’t have planes capable of flying from the U.S. to Australia, Australia has no limits on foreign ownership of domestic airlines.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
