Pre-departure test removal likely to bring school holiday travel boost

The New Zealand Government announcement bringing forward the removal of pre-departure testing will be welcomed by travellers ahead of the July school holidays, says Auckland Airport.

With 110,000 international arrivals at Auckland Airport currently forecast for the two-week school holiday period, Scott Tasker, General Manager Customer and Aeronautical Commercial, said not having to worry about a pre-departure test ahead of flying into New Zealand will greatly reduce stress and cost for travellers.

“For an Australian-based family considering their July school holiday options, New Zealand is now back in the running alongside destinations like Bali, Singapore, United States, Canada, Thailand, Fiji and the Cook Islands, which have dropped pre-departure tests for vaccinated travellers,” said Mr Tasker.

“We’ve also got a raft of international routes coming back in July – Air New Zealand is restarting its services to Adelaide, Cairns, Hobart, Sunshine Coast, Papeete, Noumea, Honolulu, and Houston, Hawaiian Airlines with its Honolulu connection, and Air Tahiti Nui to Los Angeles via Papeete – which is really opening up options for travellers to and from New Zealand. It’s great news to have the pre-departure test requirements removed ahead of these kicking off.”

From July, 18 airlines will be flying to 33 international destinations with seat capacity back to 48% of 2019 levels.