The travel chaos of last week has already cost one scalp (the managing director of Manchester Airport) and debate is raging over whether long queues are the fault of the airports and flight operators or whether part of the problem is that we have all forgotten how to travel.
I was one of the thousands who decided to have a foreign break last week and I class myself as an experienced traveller.
OK, OK, I did forget to check my son’s passport and only realised with six weeks to go that it was about to run out. Thank you, efficient people at the Passport Office who returned a brand new (blue!) passport, bang on their estimated time of three weeks.
OK, OK, I did also book my son’s PCR test for the wrong day. Thank you, kind people in Aberdeen Airport Covid testing centre for testing him anyway. Especially as we had to get up at silly o’clock to drive to our closest testing centre, then an hour back again, all before school started at 9am.
So, we had passports and a Covid test. Check. Then the anxious wait began for the result to come through. My son sneezes all summer with hay fever and sneezes all winter with a cold (and sneezes in spring and autumn when he sees the sunlight) so the result was anyone’s guess.
Negative! Yay!
All I had to do was upload his test result along with my vaccination status to an app. During this process, my budget airline started to question my organisational skills.
“REMEMBER TO BOOK IN YOUR LUGGAGE!” I was pretty sure I’d already booked luggage.
“IF YOU DON’T BOOK LUGGAGE NOW YOU WILL BE CHARGED £65 AT THE AIRPORT!” But I’m really sure I’ve already got three bags booked in.
A quick check reveals I’ve booked one “checked” bag and two “check-in” bags. What on earth does that mean? I consult my partner who is a former travel agent. He has no idea. I gamble on sorting it out at the airport.
Checked in just in time
Our flight leaves at 11:30 and, as everyone knows, if you’re late they won’t wait so I follow my app’s advice and turn up 2.5 hours early to drop my “checked in” and hopefully my “check-in” luggage.
We wait at an empty check-in counter for 40 minutes. We’ve still got to get through security and passport control and have our Covid documents checked, but at least we’re at the front of the queue.
We’re on board without anyone having checked the PCR test which cost me 80 quid and a hernia
Check-in opens… at a completely different desk further down. We’re now at the back of the queue and the very first customer has a complex problem. Gah!
Finally, we drop off our hold luggage (both kinds – it’s still a mystery) and sail through security. Moments later, our flight is called. We’re on board without anyone having checked the PCR test which cost me 80 quid and a hernia. I assume they’ll check when we land.
10 hours of stress for a 2-day trip
We disembark the aircraft and are confronted with new warning signs. Have I filled in the passenger locator form? Nope, because I assumed that would be a piece of paper given to me on the flight. Clearly I have been living in a cave because the form is now online, accessed by a QR code and needs Covid documentation uploaded to it.
“FAILURE TO FILL IN THIS FORM WILL RESULT IN A €250 FINE!” Gah!
I struggle for 30 minutes trying to get my QR code to work, fill in the form and upload Covid documentation, using only my phone and airport wifi. I try to remain calm so that my 12-year-old son can see how much fun it is to travel. Everyone else except us has now cleared passport control.
I give up and gamble on sorting it out at the passport control desk. The next thing I know, the border guard has stamped our passports and we’re through. But we’d missed our bus transfer.
So, after two years of lockdown, my 12-year-old experienced that essential confidence-building exercise of going to another country. We spoke French badly, gorged on the breakfast buffet and realised that British cuisine is still really bland. We had a great time!
But it took 10 hours to get from door to door for a two-day weekend in Brussels, and 10 hours to get back again. My blood pressure is only just back to normal and nobody ever did check that PCR test.
The summer holiday is already booked. We’re having a staycation.
Eleanor Bradford is a former BBC Scotland health correspondent and now works in communications in the education sector
