Edwina Bartholomew: Forget flying, book me a caravan for Christmas

Getting stuck on holiday with kids in a tropical destination might sound exotic, but Edwina Bartholomew argues why a caravan could be a Christmas cracker.

Kids all over the country are counting down to the September school holidays. Remember those halcyon days when four months of the year were not actually spent at school. But how many parents are simply bracing for the chaos?

I’m not talking about at home, I’m talking about the chaos of taking a holiday right now.

You’d be a brave family to book a flight interstate, let alone overseas. Three years into the pandemic, we are still dealing with the fall out of cuts to airline staff and ground services.

This week a freak series of events took out almost half of Jetstar’s long haul fleet. There’s nothing that can be done about bird strikes and lightning storms but there must be something that can be done about staff shortages and lay offs that have crippled the industry?

At the very least — communication can be improved with customers not being told their flights were cancelled until getting to the airport.

Getting stuck overseas on holidays can be a nightmare.

Sure, getting stuck in a tropical destination like Bali sounds like a good deal but consider all the extra costs involved.

You’ve already budgeted for hotels and meals and then suddenly you have to cover an extra week.

People are missing weddings, missing work, missing taking their medication. At one point up to 4000 Aussies were stranded.

Thankfully, now most of them have made it safely home.

A caravan at home could be the go-to option for many for Christmas.

I flew for the first time in months this week. It was a day trip up to Mackay and back from Sydney. It was an aeronautical miracle that all of my connecting flights left and arrived on time but the lines at the airport were close to out the door. This seems to be standard procedure now with no solution in sight.

Close to two million passengers will pass through Sydney airport alone this upcoming holidays.

The only advice on offer — take carry on (maybe only one change of undies per kid!?), pop an Apple AirTag in your bag (as rare as hen’s teeth now too) and maybe go old school and just book a caravan park an hour from home for Christmas.