More details today were released by the Government as Kiwis stuck in New South Wales scramble to get home, with criteria announced for those with urgent or exceptional circumstances to return.
According to Air New Zealand, flights that were released this morning for people returning from NSW were already booked up by midday.
The Government said today it was working on an emergency plan to bring back people who live in New Zealand who are stranded in New South Wales.
"We have a plan to get everyone that is currently stranded in NSW back home, but not everyone can travel immediately," the Covid-19 website states.
"Managed return flights will bring people home from Tuesday 13 July. Travellers will go into managed isolation upon arrival."
"Initially, there will be approximately 1,000 rooms made available across the next two weeks, but not all rooms will be available immediately. We are also working on a plan to make more rooms available for NSW returnees after the initial two week emergency allocation."
MIQ will be automatically allocated to flights and there would be no cost for the MIQ stay. Pre-departure tests would not be required.
The Government also released criteria for people with urgent or exceptional needs to return from NSW.
That included a serious risk to health or safety for the applicant or their dependent, urgent travel required to ensure a child had care or protection, the person required medical treatment or for compassionate grounds.
NSW had 77 new community cases recorded yesterday, with only 32 in isolation for the full time of their infectious period.
A short-notice press conference was held on Friday, just hours ahead of the scheduled green light flights to bring back Kiwis stranded in NSW.
There, Hipkins told media the green light flights were off for NSW and officials were hurriedly allocating 1000 MIQ rooms for the estimated 2000 stuck in in the state.
It came as NSW saw a rising number of Covid-19 infections of the Delta variant, recording its first death this year from the virus.
Green light flights still went ahead for Queensland.
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