Prime Minister Scott Morrison has flagged international travel could resume once Australia reaches an 80 per cent coronavirus vaccination rate.

Scott Morrison believes international travel could be on the near horizon for fully vaccinated Australians, as airlines prepare for the "inevitable" rollout of vaccine passports.

The prime minister and Qantas are pinning a reopening of borders on having 80 per cent of Australians aged 16 and older fully vaccinated.

"It enables Australians who are vaccinated ... to be able to travel and return at significantly reduced risks to themselves and others," Mr Morrison told reporters on Friday.

Qantas earlier revealed plans to resume flights to some low-risk destinations with high vaccination rates from the end of the year.

These include Singapore, Japan, the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand.

The airline will require travellers to be vaccinated and is working with the International Air Transport Association to roll out a travel pass when international Qantas and Jetstar flights resume.

With Europe and the UK having already introduced their own vaccine passports, Virgin Australia head of strategy Alistair Hartley said it was "inevitable" other nations across the globe would follow suit for international travel.

"They'll be some form of this," he said on Friday during an online conference hosted by the UNSW School of Aviation.

"Most airlines that I speak with ... we want to see a consistent approach."

Dhruv Gupta, chief aviation officer at Sydney Airport, said he was told checking in flights was taking six hours during a recent call with several European airport counterparts.

The silver lining, he said, was the hard lessons are currently being learnt abroad, paving the way for technology to be bedded down before Australia reopens internationally.

Mr Gupta believes the pathway to recovery for the COVID-smashed aviation industry is clearer than any time in the 18 months, courtesy of the vaccine markers for reopening set by the Doherty Institute.

"All of the data that we have seen in the first half of this year supports the fact that the underlying demand is there," he said.

"The demand is there and it's going to come back once those thresholds are hit."

Some 33 per cent of Australians aged 16 and older are fully vaccinated.

There is contention among state, territory and federal leaders about whether to include younger children in Australia's vaccination thresholds.

Mr Morrison is adamant this is not necessary under modelling provided to the national cabinet.

An expansion of home quarantine, currently being trialled in South Australia, could also be on the cards under higher vaccination rates.

Finance Minister Simon Birmingham expects the type of quarantine people will be expected to do depends on where they're coming from.

"There may well be some significant changes in terms of what we've known quarantine to be to what it will be," he told Sky News.