Travellers face tough choice amid flight cancellations, border closures

Airline groundings and Australian border closures have led to chaotic scenes as travellers scramble to change plans.

TOURISTS are frantically altering travel plans, with airline cancellations and travel bans leaving foreign visitors and Australians overseas stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Many have been forced to choose between the financial loss of cutting short their trips or the possibility of becoming stranded in foreign country during the ever-intensifying pandemic.

Cancelled flights on display at Brisbane International Airport. Photographer: Liam Kidston.

Brisbane resident Dominie Lythgoe rushed back to Australia on short notice from Los Angeles today, fearful that border closures and flight cancellations could leave her isolated overseas.

“Trump said he might be cancelling all American flights, so I just wasn’t going to risk it,” she said.

Her trolley full of suitcases was a testament to her plans for a luxurious three-month American getaway.

Dominie Lythgoe of Brisbane arrives home from LA after cutting her holiday short. Picture: Liam Kidston

That trip only lasted a week and a half, and it wasn’t much of a holiday.

“No one was on the street, and if you go to the supermarket all the food was gone,” she said.

“They were closing down bars, restaurants, everything across LA and San Francisco.”

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In New York, Emma Hoey had received messaged from family and friends urging her to “come home”.

The request was a difficult one – with many flights full, Ms Hoey’s trip back to Queensland became a round-the-world wild goose chase.

“Every time I went to the airport it didn’t have a flight … I had to get four,” she said.

Arriving back on Brisbane soil today, Ms Hoey said she was thankful – despite her trip being cut short by two months.

Emma Hoey arrives back in Brisbane after a escaping Europe via the US. Picture: Liam Kidston

“I am sad, but it’s better to be home,” she said.

The consensus feeling among foreign travellers in Australia was “nervous”, “stressed” and “panicked”.

For Viivi Thorvinen and Antti Lahtinen, a working holiday of over a year came to an abrupt end.

“On Tuesday morning we found out (Finland) was closing the borders, so we thought okay we have to go now,” Ms Thorvinen said.

The duo packed up their lives in two days, booking a last-minute trip to Finland, with their casual jobs and their health on the line due to the escalation of COVID-19 in Australia.

Viivi Thorvinen and Antti Lahtinen catching the last plane home before the borders are closed to Finland. Picture: Liam Kidston

“If we are unemployed here, because we are not residents, we won’t be getting anything from the government,” Ms Thorvinen said.

On their return, the duo will be isolating themselves in true Finish style.

“We’re going in isolation to go to our cabin, it’s in the middle of the forest,” Ms Thorvinen said.

“My mum is working as a nurse her mum is in a high-risk work so we cannot go straight back,” Mr Lahtinen said.

Meanwhile, Lou Birkner made the hard choice to stay in Australia believing it to be safer than her home in Germany.
“I’ve decided – with my parents that – is the safer country right now,” Ms Birkner said.

Lou Birkner with Nele Jager, who is flying back to Bali. Picture: Liam Kidston

“Until I’m actually scared here, I’m not flying,” she said.

“In Germany there’s thousands and thousands of cases and you have to be in your house in lock down …. Here things are relatively normal.”

Ms Birkner’s best friend Nele Jager rushed back to Bali – where she’d been living for the past year.

Ms Jager had spent just 48 hours in Australia – the whole time in isolation.