[Leica] Home from London

[hlritter at bex.net (Howard Ritter)]

Welcome home, Brian. After seeing the horror videos from Dulles or wherever, 
I think you?re lucky. Where was your port of entry, SeaTac?

For a good week my brother in Texas and I were struggling with whether to go 
ahead with our trip to Australia ? he and his family to depart last Friday 
and I to fly to join them this coming Saturday. Thursday night we decided 
against it after hoping some deus ex machina would take the decision out of 
our hands, like QANTAS announcing that it would refund the cost of fares 
canceled due to the outbreak. 

Ha!

My brother went ahead and canceled with QANTAS, but has to pay $250/traveler 
for the privilege, and must travel within one year ? not one year from the 
canceled departure, not one year from canceling, but the ?shortest? year 
possible, i.e., one year from the original booking date! For them this means 
by next October, meaning they can?t do the trip at Christmas, as they?d have 
liked. Other travelers doubtless booked their flights long before he did, 
and may not even be able to fly before this crisis is over, losing all their 
money. And what about all those who were going to Australia for a specific 
event, like a professional meeting?

Before I canceled my flight (which I still haven?t done, both because of 
interminable wait times at AMEX Travel, which made my reservations and 
therefore has to be the one to cancel them, and in hope of an emergency 
policy that would allow a simple refund as the situation becomes more dire), 
Australia had instituted a 14-day self-quarantine period for foreigners. 
QANTAS loosened its policy to the extent of waiving the pure-profit change 
fee. According to the QA website, re-booked travel still must be within one 
year of the original booking date.

Can anyone think of a good reason, other than the fact that they pretty much 
have the lion?s share of the U.S.-to-Oz route, for QANTAS to be so predatory 
in a time of global pandemic and their own government?s travel restrictions 
on tourists? Ye gods, I know their profits are gonna plummet, but what about 
all those travelers who can?t travel that soon or were going to go Down 
Under for a one-time event? They?re screwed! Most travel insurance, unless 
one of the expensive all-cause policies, doesn?t cover pandemics.

Hopefully, time, public shame, and maybe even Australian (or Trumpian?) 
intervention will cause QA to fully participate in the global crisis instead 
of trying to monetize it, which is exactly how I see this policy. The 
airline knows full well that a large percentage of us who had paid thousands 
to tens of thousands of dollars for their flights will end up not traveling 
within the year, or not going at all, forfeiting all that money and reducing 
the chance that the QANTAS CEO will have to take a pay cut.

On a related note ? my younger son and his fianc?e had planned a wedding in 
Italy at a picturesque little church in a romantic town overlooking the 
Adriatic at the end of May. Now they?re thinking about some town hall in 
Maui. (My first reaction is, ?Poor kids! What a terrible disappointment 
after a year of anticipation!?. Then I think, ? Flying to Hawaii for a 
wedding and honeymoon? Poor kids!)

I?m pissed. But I guess my family?s various woes are a very first-world 
aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Somewhat more substantive worries are the 
fact that I?m at risk just due to age, and my son is in the highest risk 
group of all ? he?s an ER doc.

?howard

> On Mar16, 2020, at 2126, Brian Reid <reid at mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> wrote:
> 
> I am safely home from London. Below is the email I sent my extended family 
> about the trip.
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> The flight was uneventful. When we landed, the pilot told us to remain in 
> our seats until the arrival team came on board and gave further 
> instructions. The usual collection of arrogant entitled middle-aged men 
> with criminally oversize carry-on bags ignored those instructions and 
> pushed their way through to cluster near the exit door, as they always do.
> 
> A crew of 4 medical-looking people with clipboards came in and fanned out 
> around the airplane. Delightfully, they ignored the hyper entitled men 
> (who were by now pushing to be allowed out the exit door) and went row by 
> row to people who were still in their seats. We were each handed a form to 
> fill out with the facts of our visit (where have you been, what symptoms 
> might you have, etc).
> 
> They took us out into the jetway in batches of 12. We were met by people 
> who looked like they were EMTs borrowed from ambulance companies, who 
> interviewed us, scanned our foreheads with no-touch thermometers, and 
> listened briefly to our airways. I checked out fine; no fever, no 
> bronchial sounds, and I had been nowhere but Battersea. My EMT signed my 
> form and I was told to wait over there.
> 
> Three or four people in police uniforms were just standing around 
> watching. I didn't see any behavior that needed the attention of the 
> police, but I'm sure there has been and will be.
> 
> From there we were escorted to passport control. One escort per group of 
> 12. I have "global entry", but in 5 years of using it, it has never worked 
> once--the camera always takes a picture of the top of my head when I look 
> down to see where the fingerprint scanner might be. So then (as always) I 
> had to get in the passport line and talk to them. At least as a 
> global-entry reject I get to butt into the front of the passport line.
> 
> I figured that the escorted batches of 12 were like the metering lights on 
> freeways. They ensured that the backed-up people would remain on the 
> airplane instead of clogging the hallways like in the news photos you've 
> probably all seen.
> 
> From there we parted with our escorts and were sent to baggage claim. We 
> got our bags. I wore fresh latex gloves. I needed to open my checked bag 
> to get out the bottle of pump-spray isopropanol to douse the suitcase (you 
> don't know who might have handled it) and then doused my hands after 
> ditching the gloves. I also doused my hair for good measure.
> 
> An unusually large set of dogs was sniffing suitcases. I've always seen 
> one dog, or occasionally two, but there were at least 10 circling around 
> Baggage Claim 4. They ignored me. Good thing I didn't have any peanut 
> butter in there this time. I don't know what they were looking for. 
> Contraband Purell?
> 
> I went outdoors to the "meet drivers here" section, and waited for my 
> driver. He drove me home quickly, filling the time with his usual 
> collection of funny stories about his past. I guess he doesn't care that 
> I've heard them all 20 times.
> 
> A shower felt good.
> 
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