From UK lockdown to AU lockup (a thread)

My London Uber driver comments that this is the first time he has been to the airport in three weeks. The closer we get to the airport, the emptier the roads get. By Heathrow, there is no traffic. The usual curb side argy-bargy persists.

An amazing experience with the checkin staff leaves 3 of us on the floor laughing, trying to re-pack my suitcase. I had heard good things about this airline; this interaction bodes well for the next 22hr! It’s difficult to pack your entire life into 30kg. Thanks Patricia & Jerry!

Heathrow Terminal 2 is quiet. Everyone is wearing a mask. Most people are social distancing. There is one food shop open and the queue stretches 50m, policed by a security guard. We are accustomed to long queues for food now, for groceries. It doesn’t seem that strange anymore.

Mass consumerism has ground to a halt at the terminal. All the other shops, aside from duty free and Boots, are closed. No longer can you wander about, wondering who on earth buys those Gucci handbags. The absence of airport shopping is one new normal I can support.

Despite there being < 5 flights per hour leaving the terminal, for some reason our flight is designated a boarding gate that is 15mins walk from the terminal entrance. Adjacent to our gate in the middle of nowhere, a flight to Miami is also boarding within the same hour. Why?

We board by zones. The mood is sombre. Everyone is subject to a skin temperature test. We line up, socially distanced, single file, meek. The thermometer is aimed at your forehead, execution-style. I wonder what happens if you fail. Off to the NHS for an NPA perhaps? Who knows.

On boarding we are greeted by flight attendants wearing full body, white hazmat-style suits with hoods, accessorised with surgical masks, gloves and plastic wraparound eye protection. They look like Ebola-fighting Oompa Loompa astronauts. I am very grateful they turned up.

I appreciate these faceless flight attendants who have come to work today to help get me home. That outfit cannot be comfortable for hours on end. It cannot be nice to know that you may catch covid at work. I am glad their workplace is taking efforts to keep them safe.

The flight isn’t full but it is still not possible to maintain social distancing. By the way seats have been allocated, it would appear that the designer believed the virus cannot move forwards & backwards, only laterally. I am grateful for the cabin HEPA filters & air changes.

Before take-off we are reminded to remove our mandatory face covering before applying the drop down oxygen mask in the event of an emergency. Solid advice. There is an inflight safety video about covid. Some guy coughs in the row in front of me. I am hypervigilant. Great.

On our first pushback in transit, the engineers noted our plane had a tyre issue. We sat on the tarmac for over an hour while they fixed it. Yay for wheels that work - landing is an important part of this journey – but boo for delays in an already 22+ hour commute.

Non-compliance with masks appears directly proportional to proximity to Australia. This flight has several young white men on it who seemed to think that the face covering rules don’t apply to them. If I get their covid I am going to be SUPER unimpressed #covidiots

The guy at the end of my row keeps putting his hand down his pants on a regular basis. Literally. Hand in pants in public. So gross. He is not wearing a mask. I find myself, somewhat bizarrely, more disgusted about the absence of a mask. How times (and standards!) have changed.

(For those interested, I death stared him until he completely non-remorsefully removed his hand from his pants, then I gestured for him to put a mask on, which he did. I also moved rows. A woman cannot complete a 13 hour flight with a creepy dude like that for a row mate.)

Witnessing the selfishness and stupidity of Australian men is disappointing. I am unfortunately accustomed to being disappointed by Australian men, so it comes as little surprise. It is concerning though. I can’t imagine this bodes well in the face of the covid spike in Victoria.

The flight to Australia was otherwise uneventful. The ignorant men continued to flaunt the rules about face coverings. The flight attendants continued to be awesome. The wheels seemed very effective on landing (per my uninformed layperson observation) so great job engineers!

I have now moved from lock down in the UK to being locked up by my own government. I have worn a cloth face mask continuously (with the exception of meals) for over 30 hours. My ears hurt and I’m annoyed at the stupidity of the men without masks, but I am otherwise unscathed.

The arrival process in Melbourne is another story for another time.