By Mataeliga Pio Sioa
Government is not taking the risk of allowing in the repatriation flight arriving this Friday, 28 August 2020, from New Zealand.
Cabinet met on Tuesday and canceled the flight.
The Air New Zealand trip from Auckland with between 200-300 passengers was supposed to be the last one for a while.
The plan was to close the borders to all international travel to allow for a full review of the current repatriation arrangements.
The Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi told the national media, Government is not comfortable with the current spread of the coronavirus in New Zealand.
“The virus is being transmitted in areas where the Samoan communities are heavily concentrated and church congregation members infected,” Tuilaepa said.
He also added strong doubts about the airline carrier giving serious attention to the health requirements all travellers must meet before they board the aircraft.
All repatriation flights of the past few months are from the Auckland-Apia route with a few exceptions from Fiji.
As of today, Wednesday 26 August 2020, all international travels in and out of Samoa are now closed until further notice unless for ‘exceptional circumstances.’
New Zealand is the primary risk area for Samoa according to the head of the National Emergency Operations Centre, Ulu Bismarck Crawley in an earlier remark to Newsline Samoa.
““The more cases in New Zealand the more pressure on us if we continue to repatriate our people,” Ulu disclosed last week.
“This is the only way for the virus to reach us and we have to assess it well and be very aggressive in our requirements.”
The canceled flight is the last of the chartered trips organised by New Zealand fruit growers to fly home the stranded RSE workers who have finished their working contracts.
Chartered flights are the only travel arrangements allowed to return stranded citizens and essential workers to Samoa.
The idea of encouraging stranded Samoan citizens to form into travel groups is being encouraged.
Citizens with the support of Samoa’s High Commissions and Consul Offices in New Zealand and Australia are being urged to get together and organise homebound travel.
Make sure to meet all travel requirements for entry into Samoa arrange and pay their own chartered flights to take off when ready.
Chartered flights are for travellers on way tickets to stay. No arriving passengers are allowed to leave Samoan once they arrive until the borders are re-opened for travel.
The head of NEOC estimates up to 3 thousand Samoans were stranded in New Zealand when the borders closed.
He counts under half are still left to make the return home.
The count, however, is only for New Zealand with others stranded in Australia, US and around the world, not included.
The urgency is also growing for the return of stranded Samoan students who have completed studies.
Seafarers working on cruise liners now stranded around many of the world travel destinations are also included in the same group.