Air travel, summer 2021
We’re back in Finland as of a week or so ago and it feels like we got out of the US in the nick of time. The month we spent there was probably one of the best 30ish-day stretches of time we could have asked for, pandemic-wise, though by the end of it, I was sweating bullets about the Delta covid variant. I’m glad we went because we got to see our families, but I also can’t shake the feeling that we played with fire, just a little bit, and we are very lucky we didn’t get burned.
A lot of people have asked how the traveling itself went, and here’s what I tell them: everything about air travel that was bad before, is ten times worse now. And it’s compounded by the fact that the airlines and airports bombard you during your trip with messages about how they care about your safety and are doing even more to provide a hygienic experience. But here’s the thing: they don’t and they aren’t? I mean, ok, maybe they are trying, but it’s still mostly just hygiene theater? You can have us stay 2 meters apart in the airport all you want, and hand out buckets of hand sanitizer…but then we stand in a zig-zag line at passport control for an hour, surrounded by a constantly shifting crowd of strangers, and then of course we do BOARD A PLANE AND SIT NEXT TO HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE IN CLOSE PROXIMITY FOR HALF A DAY. The public service announcements on repeat on the loudspeakers are completely different from the reality.
I cannot IMAGINE traveling by air right now for anything less than the most compelling reasons. Besides the borderline irresponsible (us for doing it; the airlines for allowing it) crowd conditions in the airports and on the airplanes, there are the myriad hoops you have to jump through to even board a plane in the first place. I understand that these kinds of hoops are in place to protect us (and probably do more than anything else to ensure that most of the people in those airports and on those planes aren’t active covid cases), but wow, did it make everything more stressful! If you live in the US and haven’t traveled during the pandemic, you may not realize that the US requires EVERYONE to have a negative covid test to enter the country. Everyone. It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from or what your citizenship status is - you have to test within 72 hours before your departure and show a certificate with very specific information before you can board your flight.
In some places, I gather, this certificate is cheap and easy to obtain. That was not the case here in Finland - tests are free and easy to get; that danged certificate made up to US specifications was not. I think this is partly because traveling for nonessential purposes is discouraged here, so it’s only fair that to obtain a certificate for travel, you have to pay a lot of money (like a LOT: the cheapest one is 150 euros per certificate; if you get one at the airport it’s something like 260 euros per certificate). This was our major hurdle before departing Finland - lining up the 72-hour window with when we might get the results, and when we could drive to Helsinki to get the certificate, all in time for the flight, etc., was a nightmare.
Coming back to Finland was much easier, since a) all of us except Sterling had two Pfizer shots in us by that time; and b) Finland has an app for re-entry in the time of Covid - you enter your information there and it tells you what to do and shows a QR code for immigration officials and even schedules a covid test for you if you need one. However, the Delta agent at PDX who checked us in had the wrong information in front of her and told us we couldn’t board the flight because we were missing test results required by Finland. It was extremely stressful because I knew that we were right, and that she was wrong, but also that it didn’t matter. She had all the power in that situation and if she didn’t let us on that flight, we were not getting on that flight.
We came thiiiis close to getting in line for the expensive airport tests and hoping for the best, but first, I asked her to check again…and check one more time…and then she found the right information and we were on our way. (The issue was that there are different rules for residents and non-residents of Finland, as well as different age cutoffs for testing and vaccinations, and she had the wrong set of rules in front of her.)
I think the paperwork/document check process will probably get more streamlined as things like vaccination passports come into use. But in the meantime, it’s just a big old mess. Stand in that line and show some people these documents, then go stand in that line and show some other people those documents. Sign this thing on behalf of yourself; sign that thing on behalf of your kids. Separate 3-page forms for each of you! Are you a citizen? A permanent resident? Have you had one shot? Two? Which vaccine? Do you have a certificate in English? How many days has it been since your second shot? How old are you? What airport did you transfer at? I know you showed allllll of this to the gate agent in Helsinki, but here in Amsterdam/Seattle, we need to check it alllll over again. And maybe we’ll give you the go-ahead to board…but maybe we won’t. Bon voyage, indeed.
The one thing I will say has gotten better, though, is airline food! Yes, really! These flights (KLM/Delta) had the best food I’ve had on a plane in recent years, including tiny containers of ice cream! It felt SO good to eat ice cream on a plane. It’s the only thing that even came close to erasing the stress of getting on the plane in the first place.
