Borders reopen: Victorian and NSW travellers take off as restrictions ease
Masked check-in staff, empty shops, awkward questions: my first plane trip since February was quite an experience.
A month or so ago I wrote about a magpie that had taken up residence outside my home office and was singing his little heart out in search of a mate. His melody obviously worked its magic as mum and dad soon were feeding a grey-feathered offspring that complained constantly of hunger (not unlike my 15-year-old son).
That plumage has now turned from grey to black and I honestly can’t tell if it’s parent or youngster perched on our front lawn, warbling so gloriously, the glossy black feathers on its throat rippling in the sunshine.
I’m taking the song, and the sense of renewal nature brings, as a good omen. Things are surely looking up. In fact, look up and you’re likely to spot a passenger plane in the sky. I even spied a Singapore Airlines jet the other day. Who were all those people on board going overseas? The novelty of what was once was a mundane sight seems ridiculous, but perhaps it’s evidence of how narrow our focus can become when access to the wider world is so diminished.
On Monday, flights between Sydney and Melbourne, previously the second busiest route in the world, ramped up after a four-month virtual standstill. Seventeen Qantas and Jetstar flights transported 4500 people that day, and Qantas is hoping to reach 60 per cent of its pre-COVID-19 domestic capacity by Christmas.
At a recent dinner in Sydney with Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia, which runs Ayers Rock Resort, the mood was buoyant. New chief executive Matthew Cameron-Smith spoke of staff cheering each time a flight to Uluru was added to the vastly shrunken schedule, which before the pandemic comprised 33 arrivals a week.
Three weeks ago I embarked on my first trip by plane since February, to Uluru as it happened. At check-in, masked workers sussed out my border-entry form for the Northern Territory and asked for evidence I hadn’t been in Victoria. This involved opening up the banking app on my phone to show recent transactions. An invasion of privacy? Maybe, but I didn’t care a jot. I was prepared to do anything to get on a plane and go somewhere.
Sydney’s domestic airport was a desolate place: shop doorways were locked and dark; the benchtops of most eateries were cloaked in sheets. Staff at the few restaurants still serving seemed deliriously happy to see people. In a surfwear store, the sales assistant was facing four empty hours devoid of customers until the next plane’s departure.
The airport must be a different place this week, and I wish airline crew, ground staff and retailers in Sydney, Melbourne and elsewhere well. In Australia at least, things are looking up. Is it a bird, is it a plane? The view outside my home office says it’s both.