No one left in the queue again for MIQ’s 10th voucher release via virtual lobby – 30 Nov 2021
Published: 30 November 2021
At 9am today, the 10th release of rooms through the virtual lobby took place successfully.
On this page
Statement by Joint Head of MIQ Chris Bunny
Once again we saw a drop in the number of people participating in today’s room release. There were only 4,498 people in the lobby at 9am – approximately 1,000 less people than last week, and 10,000 less people than before the border re-opening announcement. For a second time, everybody that joined the queue had the opportunity to enter the Managed Isolation Allocation System website.
Due to the evolving situation with the Omicron variant, we need to carefully manage our MIQ capacity. We reduced the amount of rooms for this release by approximately 1,100, which was purely precautionary. This is a rapidly evolving situation and we have to ensure we have the capacity to accommodate international arrivals as well as community cases in the coming days and weeks. With travellers from the recently designated very high-risk countries now currently needing to spend longer in MIQ, instead of 7 days, this will reduce the number of available rooms in our facilities.
We will continue to release as many rooms as we can in a safe, manageable way. We’ve released a substantial number of rooms recently – more than 51,500 people have secured vouchers through the last 10 room releases (including today’s) and there are still several thousand rooms to be released through to March.
Summary of the stats
The lobby opened about 10 minutes before 8am today.
At 9am 4,498 people were moved into the queue — this represented 6,909 passengers. These numbers grew as people entered the queue throughout the room release (these people go to the back of the queue). There were 5,315 people in the queue in total, representing 8,037 passengers.
2,068 people took the opportunity to secure MIQ vouchers – this represented 3,153 passengers from 95 countries, and across 2,090 rooms. All rooms were taken by 10:17am.
All 5,315 people got access to the website and had the chance to book a room, but some chose not to, either because they didn’t want a particular month (e.g. March) or the dates that were left didn’t line up with flight routes from their departure point.
Dates for today’s release were available across December, January, February and March. December and January dates were the first to be taken, with March dates the last to go.
Approximately 40% of people who participated in the room release today were based in New Zealand. This could be people booking on behalf of other people based overseas, or could be people planning to travel overseas for business, to see family etc and return to New Zealand.
The next room release is to be confirmed.
We have already brought over 195,000 people back to New Zealand safely and will continue to focus on the safe return of more Kiwis.
Rooms released today
December — 366
January – 459
February – 515
March – 750
Top countries (by departure point)
Note: This is people not rooms:
Australia — 527 passengers
India — 524 passengers
Great Britain — 386 passengers
USA — 316 passengers
United Arab Emirates — 127 passengers
China — 124 passengers
Canada – 79 passengers
Philippines – 75 passengers
Pakistan — 69 passengers
Fiji – 66 passengers
| Room release 1 – 20 Sept | Room release 2 – 28 Sept | Room release 3 – 5 Oct | Room release 4 – 12 Oct | Room release 5 – 21 Oct | Room release 6 – 2 Nov | Room release 7 – 9 Nov | Room release 8 – 18 Nov | Room release 9 – 25 Nov | Room release 10 – 30 Nov | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| People in lobby | 25,000 | 26,700 | 25,100 | 22,459 | 19,823 | 15,925 | 14,205 – representing 22,458 passengers1 | 14,599 – representing 22,406 passengers1 | 5,426 -representing 8,182 passengers1 | 4,498 - representing 6,909 passengers1 |
| Total people in queue | 31,900 | 31,319 | 28,406 | 24,987 | 21,368 | 17,665 – representing 26,580 passengers1 | 16,277 – representing 24,695 passengers1 | 16,278 – representing 24,675 passengers1 | 6,307 - representing 9,341 passengers1 | 5,315 – representing 8,037 passengers1 |
| Total people who got vouchers | 5,364 | 6,231 | 6,449 | 5,015 | 3,516 | 5,483 | 5,888 | 6,214 | 4,927 | 3,153 |
| Total number of countries | 117 | 125 | 126 | 111 | 97 | 109 | 128 | 126 | 122 | 95 |
| Total Number of rooms | 3,205 | 3,718 | 3,739 | 2,927 | 2,103 | 3,747 | 4,039 | 4,230 | 3,411 available; 3,320 taken | 2,090 |
| Room numbers by month |
September- 338 October – 1767 November - 600 December - 500 |
October – 1,434 November -1,600 December - 684 |
October – 316 November -1,501 December - 1,201 January - 721 |
November -159 December - 1,197 January - 1,571 |
December - 1,000 January - 1,103 |
December – 1,103 January - 1,144 February – 1,500 |
November – 507 December - 1,337 January – 1,035 February – 1,160 |
November – 659 December — 1,235 January – 1,146 February – 1,190 |
November – 357 December — 988 January – 850 February – 1,216 (not all of these were taken) |
December — 366 January – 459 February – 515 March– 750 |
| Top Countries |
Australia —1352 passengers Great Britain —774 passengers India —460 passengers USA — 453 passengers China —268 passengers |
Australia — 1629 passengers Great Britain— 791 passengers India — 647 passengers USA — 495 passengers China — 263 passengers |
Australia — 1296 passengers Great Britain —970 passengers USA— 722 passengers India— 583 passengers China— 272 passengers. |
Australia — 986 passengers Great Britain — 773 passengers USA —541 passengers India— 475 passengers United Arab Emirates — 211 passengers |
Australia— 714 passengers Great Britain — 424 passengers USA — 423 passengers India — 400 passengers China — 180 passengers |
Australia — 1258 passengers Great Britain — 747 passengers India — 589 passengers USA — 581 passengers China — 235 passengers |
Australia — 1399 passengers Great Britain — 779 passengers USA — 633 passengers India — 607 passengers China — 274 passengers |
Australia — 1707 Great Britain — 755 India — 668 USA — 625 China — 261 |
Australia — 1175 India — 599 USA — 505 Great Britain — 481 China — 213 |
Australia — 527 India — 524 Great Britain — 386 USA — 316 United Arab Emirates — 127 |
1 Footnote: This data differs from previous releases due to the change in passport entry requirements for the lobby. People are now required to enter the passport numbers of all passengers travelling in their group, and only 1 member of the group can enter the lobby.
https://www.miq.govt.nz/about/news/no-one-left-in-the-queue-again-for-miqs-10th-voucher-release-via-virtual-lobby-30-nov-2021/
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