[Leica] Home from London

[jayanand at gmail.com (Jayanand Govindaraj)]

You can be pissed, but they will be bankrupt in one month if conditions
stay as they are. They are in a fight for survival, as are all airlines.

Jayanand

On Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 6:47 PM Howard Ritter via LUG <lug at 
leica-users.org>
wrote:

> 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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>
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