New Zealand bursts travel bubble with Australia

New Zealand has completely paused its quarantine-free travel bubble with Australia, in a blow to emerging signs of jet fuel demand growth from the arrangement.

From 11.59pm New Zealand time (11:59 GMT) today Australians will no longer be able to enter the country quarantine free for at least the next eight weeks because of Australia's worsening Covid-19 situation, the New Zealand government said today. New Zealand had already halted quarantine-free travel with Australia's New South Wales and Victoria states because of their Covid-19 outbreaks.

Australia saw an increase in jet fuel use for international flights in May to their highest level in five months as the travel bubble with New Zealand opened. But the latest outbreaks have since dented travel activity, with Australia's busiest airport of Sydney seeing passenger numbers dropping to a four-month low in June.

The operator of New Zealand's sole refinery, the 135,000 b/d Marsden Point, said jet fuel volumes had remained low at around 40pc of pre-pandemic levels during May-June, even after the opening of quarantine-free travel between New Zealand and Australia in April. New Zealand's jet fuel consumption dropped to a 27-year low in 2020 because of Covid-19 border restrictions.

Passenger movements had already started to dip when Australia's largest city Sydney entered its current lockdown. Passenger traffic at Auckland airport, New Zealand's main international gateway, fell to around 687,000 last month, down by 4.7pc from a 14-month high in May.

By Richard Davies