Results for Travel

With hugs and tears families were reunited at Tonga's Fua'amotu International Airport, after arriving on the first flight as Tonga re-opened its international border with zero quarantine, on Monday 1 August. Lu’isa Sakalia, from Ma'ufanga kissed her young nephew and held him tight.

Tonga's borders will open on 1 August, with the number of weekly flights increasing slowly over the next two months, the Tonga Government announced last night. Adults must prove they are vaccinated for COVID-19 (unless exempted) with at least two doses, and all passengers must have a supervised negative rapid antigen test (RAT) before departure.

Tonga is looking for an incremental border re-opening in August, said MEIDECC CEO Paula Ma’u today, and the good news is that the government may hand back incoming bookings to the airlines from mid-July.

Tonga won the BIE Gold Award for exhibition design at the Expo 2020 Dubai on March 30, for its “supreme aesthetic functionality with extraordinary visitor discovery” in the the Opportunity District, Interior Design Category.

Tonga has reduced its Managed Isolation Quarantine (MIQ) requirement for international arrivals from 21 to 15 days, for the 180 repatriates who arrived at Fua'amotu International Airport yesterday, on three flights coming from New Zealand, Fiji, and Australia.

Repatriation flights to Tonga from Australia, Vanuatu, Fiji (for stranded passengers), and possibly Samoa have been confirmed tentatively for January 18 next year, MEIDECC CEO Paula Ma'u told Matangi Tonga this afternoon. A repatriation flight from New Zealand that was scheduled for January 11 has been delayed and confirmed tentatively for January 20.

Tonga’s next repatriation flight is on scheduled to arrive from Christchurch, New Zealand, on October 27 with 300 passengers.

People over the age of 18 years planning to travel on Air New Zealand international flights will need to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 from 1 February 2022, or to provide a medical exemption.

The repatriations that were scheduled to arrive in Tonga tomorrow, August 25, and next week have been deferred until further notice, MEIDECC have announced.