Auckland Airport trials Covid-busting tech ahead of one-way bubble opening

Auckland International Airport is trialling new coronavirus-busting technology, including thermal-imaging cameras to detect travellers with fevers, as it prepares to process the first passengers to fly to Australia under a new one-way travel bubble. From Friday New Zealanders who have not been in a designated Covid-19 hotspot in the past 14 days will be able to travel to New South Wales and the Northern Territory without needing to go into quarantine. The arrangement will be one-way, with Australians still not allowed to enter New Zealand, and anyone leaving these shores for Australia will need to pay for two weeks of managed isolation upon their return to New Zealand. Qantas and its subsidiary Jetstar were quick to reinstate flights across the Tasman following the news, with Qantas operating six Auckland-Sydney flights and four Christchurch-Sydney flights per week and Jetstar operating three Auckland-Sydney flights per week. Auckland Airport said the Jetstar and Qantas restart brought the number of airlines operating scheduled services across the Tasman to four, joining Air New Zealand and Qatar. Air New Zealand has continued flying to Australia throughout the pandemic, with services from Auckland to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Auckland Airport operations general manager Anna Cassels-Brown said it had various technology trials underway to protect passengers at the airport, on top of existing safety measures such as separate terminal areas for transit passengers. Trials were underway on thermal-imaging cameras that could detect someone with a fever amongst a group of people, she said.<br/>