Tongans stranded overseas will have to wait until at least January 18th for repatriation flights.
A government official has told Matangi Tonga flights from Australia, Vanuatu, Fiji and possibly Samoa have been confirmed tentatively for that date.
A repatriation flight from New Zealand is pencilled in for January 20th.
Last month hundreds of Tongan seasonal workers, stranded in New Zealand, pleaded to be allowed to get home before Christmas.
But the Ministry of Internal Affairs chief executive Fotu Fisiiahi, says the government can only bring them home when it is safe to do so, and it's not ready to do that.
He says their primary concern remains keeping Covid-19 out of Tonga, and that there was no way Tonga could extend its current quarantine capacity beyond 300 people.
Meanwhile, 96 percent of Tonga's eligible population has now received the first dose of the vaccine.
71 percent are fully vaccinated.