Traveling by fly under the corona
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“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s your captain who is speaking. Welcome aboard this flight. Please follow the covid rules and always keep your distance from your fellow passengers. Have a pleasant flight.”
With all due respect, Captain, that’s easier said than done.
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After the pandemic seemed to drop its iron grip on the world earlier this autumn, Norwegians flocked to the travel agencies’ websites. Spain, Greece, Italy, Gran Canaria, Thailand … all the places we barely dared to dream of last winter, will be finally achievable again. Then the rumors about the omikron variant began to swirl. Maybe it was not okay to travel anyway? Should one cancel, wait or bet on traveling anyway? What is it really like to travel now?
Well. The short, simple answer is that it goes well. If you have all your papers in order, you will get where you need to go. The long, slightly more complicated answer is that it is … well, a bit complicated. Especially if you are going to a place where there are no direct flights.
My recent business trip gave me six flights in four days. It would have been tiring even in the old days, but now? It might be comparable to cycling in the winter: it requires more preparation, requires more time, is more controlled, causes more discomfort and you are more worn out when you arrive.
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The rule race
First of all: having all your paperwork in order is not at all as simple as it sounds. This is because it changes from day to day and country to country what documentation is required.
I myself experienced that entry registration to Norway was not required when my trip started, but was when I returned home four days later. Admittedly, no one ever checked that I had filled it out, neither on departure nor on arrival at Gardermoen. But after putting an elderly couple refused to board their plane in Athens because they had not properly filled out the form for Italia, it was a little tempting to make the same mistake themselves.
While this text was being written, the rules were changed again. The omikron variant quickly appeared on a Christmas table in Norway, and thus all travel rules on new ones were thrown up in the air and put into play. Well, it no longer holds with entry registration. Now everyone who comes to Norway, fully vaccinated or not, must test themselves at the place of arrival.
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Maskorama in Munich
Secondly: do not think that Europe agrees with itself on what applies. Instead, there are many indications that Europe has forgotten to talk to each other.
Most countries are the only ones to say that it is necessary to wear a mask both on the plane and at the airports. But if you need a stopover in Germany, the light blue medical masks we use here in Norway do not last. There you have to have a so-called FFp2 mask – you know, the ones that look like a kind of coffee filter – in order to be allowed to stay at the airport at all.
The injunction does not comply with much force until you try to get yourself a table at a restaurant. If you have the wrong mask, you will be flatly rejected. To get access to the restaurant, you must also show both corona pass, boarding pass and regular pass – and here I will give you a tip: Print out everything that can be printed. The Helsenorge app is all well and good, but the online chair does not work when you need it. Not even at a European airport.
If you have had your passport approved and been assigned a table, completely different rules apply. As soon as you have sat down, you are free to take off the required special mask. Also when the waiter comes to your order and – wearing a completely ordinary mask – leans up to you to hear what you are saying. Rules are shown first and foremost rules. That they should also be logical is possibly another toast.
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Distance calculation
Third: Let’s go back to the captain and his call to keep his distance. Of course we have to keep our distance! That has been the mantra, for almost a year. Foaming a stranger now feels a bit like putting your hand on a hot hob.
But how do you keep your distance, really, when the plane is full? How do you keep your distance when you have been assigned a seat next to a wild stranger (even though it turned out to be a completely vacant three-seater a little further back), and you sit so cramped that your sidekick breathes in your ear? And where exactly is the logic in being asked to keep a distance in the aisle and down the flight of stairs on arrival, when we are afterwards stowed together like herring in a barrel in a waiting terminal bus?
The conclusion may be that there is no obvious logic. If you are going to travel this winter, there are really only three things that apply:
1. Read up as best you can on all rules, restrictions and document requirements in good time before departure. Repeat just before departure, and along the way. Absolutely everything can be changed in no time.
2. Do not expect logic. Then you just get frustrated.
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Mask games
“Please pull up your mask, sir. Yes, over your nose too.” The cabin crew’s polite bullying of the passengers became a kind of soundtrack for the entire journey. Many, especially some middle-aged men, seemed to believe that the beard mask was meant to protect.
They also had to board the last plane home, the biggest rush from Copenhagen to Oslo. Until the purser with clear astonishment in his voice announced over the loudspeaker that on this plane, ie from Copenhagen to Oslo, – but not the opposite way, if anyone should believe it – it was actually voluntary whether you wanted to wear a mask or not. Those who wanted it, therefore, could be allowed to mask off. It was up to oneself, simply.
At least today.
Whether it still applies tomorrow, the birds must know.
Ps:
Two days after this flight was written, SAS announced an upcoming order for a mouthpiece on all its flights. Also those from Copenhagen to Oslo.