[Leica] Home from London

[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 fiancée 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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