Some New Zealanders heading home are being forced onto “milk run” flights hopping from one destination to the next to marry their arrival up with their MIQ spot.
Flights to New Zealand are still limited so that literally means going backwards – sometimes thousands of kilometres – to go forwards.
House of Travel’s Tim Malone has been designing complicated travel arrangements so people meet their MIQ commitments.
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Malone told Checkpoint airline schedules were very unreliable right now because of governments’ changing rules around the world were in flux.
While he welcomes Chris Hipkins’ announcement that a date for progressing out of MIQ restrictions would soon to be revealed, he said travel agents have to be realistic about changing rules both here and in other parts of the world.
Those New Zealanders returning from overseas and forced into long flights via several destinations to arrive in Aotearoa on the correct date for their MIQ spot are coming from places you’d not expect there to be an issue, Malone said.
“Australia is one that can be difficult for some people. Air New Zealand don’t fly from Sydney to Auckland Airport every day, or from Brisbane to Auckland every day,” he said.
“So if someone has an MIQ spot that is for the wrong day and there’s no flight coming directly from Australia, then ultimately they’re going to have to look at some other routes, or if they don’t know how to do that they’ll just give up their MIQ spot and that’s a pretty terrible situation.
“New York and anywhere in the states is another one, because there aren’t daily flights from those places.”
Air New Zealand only flies from LA to Auckland three times per week….