Flying in the Time of Corona
Two days spent in panic mode: We travelled back to Sri Lanka from a long-planned holiday to the UK a week early as the panic of COVID-19 took off.
Sweating feverishly in a newly set up airport health check line, it was hard to tell if the heat building up inside my head was from the coronavirus or the sheer panic of the last 40 hours.
The day had begun with a foreboding WhatsApp from my boss back home.
PING!
Message: If it’s at all possible come sooner, flights from the UK are not banned as of yet, but might be in a day or two. Flights from France are banned from entering Sri Lanka.
I read the message bleary-eyed, and gurgled an expletive that woke my husband up. It was 7am on a Saturday morning, and we were meant to catch the train to meet two fellow Lankan friends for a weekend trip to Eastbourne. We were meant to stay at a hotel with unintentionally mind-bending interiors designed by someone clearly heavily medicated at the time, and we were going to freeze our unmentionables off at Beachy Head. We were meant to spend the evening drinking, dismissing the hysteria over the pandemic, and playing Bananagrams.
Unsurprisingly, those plans got cancelled pretty fast. Instead, we high-tailed it to Heathrow. Well, I say high-tailed. What I mean is, we tried ringing the airline only to encounter a phone off the hook, made our way down to their head office instead, queued for 45 minutes listening to an Australian barfly talk about garbage before yelling about an unanswered Tweet at the poor lone airline rep that was working that day (his three colleagues were off sick), successfully moved our flight up from next Saturday to that night itself, nervously wiled the hours away in the now sparsely populated London streets, constantly checked Watchdog for news of travel bans and airport closures, grabbed a box of chocolate biscuits for my brother from Tesco in one moment of clarity, returned to our hotel to pick up our luggage, listened to the Italian receptionists lament the way the British government was handling the situation (the virus don’t care about your stiff upper lip, mate) and then sat on the underground for close to two hours on the way to Terminal 4. I realise this is less glamorous, but we can’t all be Indiana Jones.
Trying not to snap at each other and messaging our mothers that we had made it to the airport, we went through the unnecessarily complicated process of self service check in and bag drop (yet another touchscreen — why, London, WHY??), made it through security where a huffy woman pointlessly sealed my hand sanitiser in a bag, spent a grand total of ten minutes at the duty free, and then sat down at Costa for what I hoped would be a relaxing opportunity to recharge my phone and our brains. My husband opened his laptop to book a taxi from the airport in Sri Lanka to our home, and I decided to enjoy a coffee and a slice of cake.
Except, as I sipped my coffee I felt a weird irritation just above the back of my throat. Alarm set in as I recognised this feeling as one I would get just before a cold started pouring out of my nose uncontrollably. Not now, damn you, not now!
“Qatar Airways flight to Colombo from Doha cancelled.”
My husband’s voice brought me out of my fug of mounting dread and we locked eyes in terror over his laptop screen. Our flight would also transit in Doha.
“Not ours, right?”
“No. Ours is fine… for now.”
My runny nose worsened as we neared our gate. I kept telling myself that the virus’s main symptoms were fever, cough and difficulty breathing, of which I had none.
Just don’t touch anyone.
The first flight was six hours of fitful sleep, and we landed smoothly in Doha. One person clapped once before feeling embarrassed and putting their hands away. No one was in a good mood. Hamad International Airport had been buzzing with excited travellers on our way up to the UK just 11 days before. Now it was filled with weary, harassed people in face masks, gloves, and one or two stylish “hazmat” suits. I took a paracetamol and sipped a green tea at the gate as my runny nose resurfaced at the change in temperature. During this time of contagion paranoia, I might have reconsidered travelling if it hadn’t been for the conversation I’d had with my mother on Friday night, before this all kicked off.
“I think you should consider coming back early.”
“How early? Like, Monday?”
“Yes. This coronavirus is becoming a real issue. What if you’re quarantined?”
“I’m sure it’ll be okay.”
“What if you’re quarantined and I fall ill? Who will look after the dogs?”
That worst case scenario stopped me in my tracks. She was indeed staying with our dogs while we were away, being the only other person on the planet apart from us able to deal with their eccentricities. What if they had to go without food for 14 days? What if someone they didn’t know had to feed them and scared the living daylights out of them? What if there was a scuffle, and in the confusion someone got hurt?
No, we had to go. My boss’s message the next morning only accelerated our exit.
We boarded a much smaller flight than expected since there were hardly any passengers, and were ushered to our seats by extremely stressed and strained flight attendants, no doubt wishing they too could just go home. Relief flooded over me when I realised we were in the air. I must have fallen asleep instantly after sitting in my seat. I closed my eyes again and let those final hours fly by.
Once we’d landed in Colombo, more queuing ensued. We filled in forms between peeling off layers, stood in queues only to be told we needed the forms stamped from another queue, and finally ended up in the health check line, waiting to have our temperature taken. My ears began to burn and my husband started analysing a video by the health ministry playing overhead.
“That is definitely a free vector. Right? Look at it.”
I knew he was trying to distract me from the carousel of anxious thoughts spinning in my mind, and I was finding it hard to respond until I actually looked up at the video of cartoon vector doctors and nurses, and noticed a common pet peeve for Sri Lankan audiences.
“Man… They could have at least made them brown.”
37.04ºC
PHEW.
We got our forms stamped with an all clear, and were ushered to immigration. It was only at this point when it occurred to me how polite and patient all the other officials had been so far, despite the chaos, because, in stark contrast, immigration officers will always be the same: unreadable, cold, and mildly threatening with comments like, “The UK isn’t on the list of banned flights yet, no?”
For our luck, flights from the UK would not be banned until the following day, so we had got back just in time.
Almost always late to the party, my husband and I were, for once, on the front line of a global event. We observed the empty airports, the panic, the stress, and the unknown. We stayed calm and supported each other, even though our insides were churning the whole time. And now we’re back home, safely with our loved ones and ready for whatever happens next.
So far self-quarantining isn’t so bad, and registering with the police wasn’t too difficult (once you get through — took about 117 tries for us). My cold is gone, but some infected by COVID-19 don’t show any symptoms at all, and even though we used hand sanitiser at every turn in London and washed our hands with soap like Lady Macbeth on crack, you can never tell. Good luck to you all. After that tense journey, I’m looking forward to two weeks of staying put.
