Canberra was set to receive another international flight following the federal government announcement of an additional 20 chartered planes to bring home Australians stranded overseas.

ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith expected the planeload of returning travellers would arrive in Canberra early to mid February.

"We have always said we will only ever take one flight at a time, and that's partly around the capacity of all our teams to manage the hotel quarantine program but also we only currently have one hotel in the ACT we are able to work with to with to undertake hotel quarantine," she told ABC Radio Canberra.

"The scheduling of those flights is a matter for the Commonwealth government but it's just a question of us being ready."

Passengers of the flight would stay at the Pacific Suites Hotel, which was also used for the last repatriation flight.

Ms Stephen-Smith said, as of Friday, there were 290 people in managed quarantine in Canberra and 500 people who were self-isolating after returning from a Sydney hotspot.

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She said the ACT would not accept a repatriation flight if there were more than 300 people in managed quarantine at one time.

The Health Minister said daily testing of hotel staff, which has started in NSW and Victoria, was not yet available in Canberra but expected it would begin soon.

Currently, hotel quarantine staff undergo a weekly nasal swab test.

Ms Stephen-Smith said it was unreasonable for staff to have daily testing without the saliva test option.

"The last flight we had we introduced a seven-day testing of workers who were working in the hotel quarantine space," Ms Stephen-Smith said.

"We are moving towards a daily testing regime that's been implemented in some other larger jurisdictions.

"The technology has really come a long way; it's already being used in NSW and Victoria and we're expecting to have that available in the ACT before too long as well."

All returning travellers must now have a negative COVID-19 test before getting on the plane home, but Ms Stephen-Smith reiterated there would still likely be positive cases onboard.

"Testing negative before you get on the flight is no guarantee that ... the virus hasn't been transmitted to you and you're in that incubation period, so that's why it's really important even if you test negative before you get a flight you still go into that 14 days quarantine and we continue to see the people that tested negative before they got on the plane will test positive during that quarantine period," she said.

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