No more departure cards

Stuff reports:

Airport departure cards will be a thing of the past from November.

People will no longer have to fill out the cards before flying overseas, Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway announced at Auckland International Airport on Sunday.

“This will improve the experience of all travellers departing New Zealand, enabling a faster and smoother process ahead of the busy holiday period,” Lees-Galloway said.

“It will also save more than 100,000 hours of time currently spent by travellers completing more than 6.5 million departure cards per year.”

This is a good thing.

When you book your airline tickets, the airlines have all the info that goes on a departure card. I often wondered why they couldn’t provide filled in cards for you when you check in.

Presumably in future the airlines will share the data directly with the Government.