Australia is set to reopen the international border in November

It’s almost time to get back on Skyscanner because Australia is reopening its international border from November, it’s been confirmed.

As per BBC, vaccinated travellers will be allowed Down Under for the first time in 18 long, long months. Until November, it was only citizens and people with exemptions who were allowed to enter. Outbound travel is also banned without an exemption.

PM Scott Morrison confirmed that states with vaccination rates above 80% would get the new travel freedoms. “It’s time to give Australians their lives back,” he said on Friday, October 1st.

The country’s controversial 14-day hotel quarantine – which cost a traveller a whopping A$3,000 – will now be phased out and replaced by a smaller 7-day home quarantine. There will be caps on the number of unvaccinated Australians who can return due to limits on hotel quarantine spots. For the fully vaccinated though, there will be no such cap.

Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra remain in lockdown due to COVID-19 outbreaks but all three cities are seeing an increase in vaccination rates. As it stands, New South Wales is on track to be the first state to meet that 80% vaccination threshold in the next few weeks. Sydney is expected to emerge from its 13-week lockdown by the end of October.

States faring better at controlling the virus such as Queensland and Western Australia are threatening to keep their borders closed until vaccination rates are even higher though.

It’s also unclear if the major airlines will be fully ready to handle the sudden increase in international travel. Australia is also still working towards creating a quarantine-free travel bubble with certain countries such as New Zealand, although the details are still being worked out.

For more on this topic, follow the Travel Observer.

Check out PM Scott Morrison’s press conference announcing lifting of Australia’s border ban: