Traveling During COVID
Sunday, August 29th, 2021
For the past year and a half, if you told someone you were traveling they looked at you kind of funny… you are getting on a plane and going somewhere? For some of us, travel was not so fearful. You did what you thought was best: get vaccinated, wear your mask, follow the rules, and be smart. For others, it was and still remains taboo.
When COVID first struck and everything was on lockdown, vacation travel was at a standstill. Did people still fly? Of course they did, but much of that was for work purposes. Airlines were practically giving away flights with no change fees and full refunds. Airlines needed travelers and locations needed tourists. If you were not wary of flying there were some great deals to be had.
I flew to see my parents for Christmas during COVID. A ticket that normally would have cost $300+ was just $78 round-trip, I was not passing that up (I weighed my options, 12 hours in a car with my brother or 2 hours on a plane possibly filled with COVID carrying strangers – you just heard which one won). Was I scared of flying? You bet I was, but I had been following the rules and hoped that everyone on the flight had also done the same. I wore my mask everywhere and so did everyone else – there were no lines at the airport during the holiday season, I arrived a measly 1.5 hours before my flight and was sitting at the gate for an hour… unheard of.
Then in July things changed, the COVID virus seemed to be waning, people were getting vaccinated, and it appeared the world was opening up again. Masks were still mandatory in the airports and on the planes, but were no longer mandated in other places. So I booked another cheap flight to Myrtle Beach for the 4th of July weekend – this time things were different. For the first time, I flew out of Stewart Airport. You know, that airport right in our backyard. I was ecstatic. No drive to a NYC airport, no long term parking, just a friend dropping me off and picking me up 12 minutes from my house. Leaving Stewart was great – arrive half an hour before the flight and still be at the gate with 15 minutes to spare. When I arrived in Myrtle Beach to an airport that I had never seen before, the lines to pick up passengers were hundreds of cars deep and backing up traffic on the main road that runs by the normally quiet airport. Friends were joining me for the weekend, so I had to make two more trips to the airport, both resulting in over 45 minute waits. I have been traveling to Myrtle Beach for 30 years, and not once have I ever seen the airport like that.
When it came to my return flight home, the effects of COVID impacted my trip once again. My flight back to Stewart was canceled. We can get you home on Thursday they told me…Thursday??? That was three days after I was supposed to leave. What about all those travelers who had checked out of their hotel and now had no place to stay? It hit me that the airlines were suffering from lack of employees just like other businesses – restaurants, retail stores, and everywhere in between.
I had the opportunity to travel two times in the past few weeks and have come across some very disturbing similarities and some very stark contrasts on both trips. On one trip out of the country, on my flight from NYC I observed that everyone wore their masks; there were a few obligatory reminders on the 6-hour flight to keep your masks up, but no additional reminders. However, while at our resort, most people did not wear masks. We wore ours in outdoor spaces where social distancing was not being practiced, while we were on transportation, and while walking around the town, but we were by far in the minority.
The trip back on the plane was not quite as quiet as the trip there. We had to make a stop in Houston on the way home and what I observed on the flight from Mexico to Houston was in stark contrast to the flight out. The airline attendants were forced to make announcement after announcement that your mask needed to be kept up over your nose and mouth when you were not actively eating or drinking. I must have heard this announcement at least 25 times, and you could see the attendants were getting frustrated that many were not listening. There was a woman in the same row as me who talked non-stop to her friend and only pulled her mask up when the attendant was headed her way. I felt bad for the gentlemen next to her who had has mask up the whole time. He was on the same plane, paid for his ticket, followed the rules, and there was someone so inconsiderate sitting next to him with a blatant disregard for the rules or for safety. I asked the attendant if this was the norm to be making so many announcements and she said that this was the WORST flight she had been on for this. On the last leg of the flight back to NYC, we did not have the same issues, there were a few additional reminders, but nothing like the previous flight.
My other recent trip was to a COVID hotspot. What was I thinking? Well, I was thinking, “I’m vaccinated, my friends are vaccinated, this will be ok. Follow the rules, wear your mask, people will be wearing their masks, and there will be no issues.”
Boy, was I wrong. Although we were in an outdoor area, while walking through the streets and entering establishments, those of us traveling wore our masks; but again, we were the minority. Most people were mask-less, even those who were working in the places we visited. The big difference in this trip was that there were no issues on the plane in either direction – no need for excessive announcements, or frequent trips up and down the aisle to remind people to pull up their masks.
Some of the people that I spoke to at both destinations were vaccinated and others were not. Some had personal stories from COVID and others were not affected at all. So the point of all this – everyone has their own ideas and perceptions of what is right and what they should be doing. For me, it was about doing what I thought was the right thing – not just for my own wellbeing and safety – but for those around me, those that I was going to be around when I arrived at my destination, and those that I was going to be around when I returned home.
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