Return to air travel a minefield of tests and paperwork
So how are we all going after lockdown? Looking forward to a bit of turndown … of the hotel housekeeping kind, that is?
So how are we all going after lockdown? Looking forward to a bit of turndown … of the hotel housekeeping kind, that is? Ready to navigate the complexities of a brave new world of travel?
Have you planned and tested a roadmap out of your leisurewear, which in many cases (primarily mine) means proceeding with an abundance of corsetry. You think I mean caution? Yes, that as well. But along with the restrictions endured in the past 18 months or so can we please just shuck off the Covid vocabulary? The only deep dive I want to take now is in a resort pool and, as for pathways, hopefully they will lead me to a comfy encampment of tents in a place of stirring beauty. But it’s not that seamless. We still need to know our PCRs from our VTLs and our approved travel bubbles from shimmering mirages that can dissolve in a micro-second.
Boarding an international flight, as my younger son did a few weeks ago out of Sydney with “an exemption to travel” pile of paperwork that barely fitted in a wheelbarrow, can feel like a 400m hurdles race.
Upon check-in, he was told the prepaid quarantine hotel at his Asian destination had not been added to the airline’s list of “approved accommodation”. He showed all the printed and electronic evidence required by the relevant embassy, our federal government, the airline’s website, the hotel’s eye-wateringly expensive “quarantine package” printouts and every other bit of bureaucratic guff. He’d had so many Covid jabs and tests and temperature checks and general intrusions he’d almost sprung leaks. But, no, young fella, you can’t board, because that hotel is not on our list. He stood firm, only moving aside to allow a fellow passenger to have her own altercation.
As the flight was about to close, the check-in clerk finally received a call back from the airline’s home base (not my son’s destination, but a transit stop).
Oh, OK, that hotel was added in August and our list hasn’t been updated since July. Sorry ’bout that. Bit of an “administrative protocol oversight”. Here’s your boarding pass. You’ll need to run to the gate. Have a good flight. It‘s a tiny story but it illuminates a level of confusion, anxiety and, dare I say, incompetence, that may well lie in store while we get back to normal transmission.
Although let’s not use that word transmission. RTR, perhaps? Return to reality, that is. Prepare for speed bumps, I say, and be elastic in your expectations. Expect RATs (Rapid Antigen Tests) in the ranks.
