Travelling in Covid (and post-Brexit) times is challenging
We all have our tales of travel mishaps: delays, cancellations, technical problems, strikes, lost luggage, adverse weather conditions... the list is endless. Since the start of the Covid pandemic, travelling has entered a whole new stressful dimension, raising all sorts of questions, such as:
What are the travel entry requirements? Do I need to take a test before departure? Do I need a test on arrival? Is an antigen rapid test (i.e., lateral flow) sufficient or do I need a PCR test? What does fully vaccinated mean? Which vaccines are accepted? Do I need a booster jab? Will I need to isolate on arrival? What are the rules for children? Do I need to fill out a form? Do I need a digital passenger locator form or a different sort of form? What kind of mask do I need to wear? Is an FFP2 mask required?
Welcome to the world of travelling during Covid times. And even if you think you may have found the answers to those questions, please bear in mind that travel rules change all the time, often without warning. This could be due to several reasons, e.g., a sudden rise in Covid cases or the emergence of a new variant or simply the government changing its mind. And once you get to your destination, make sure you comply with the country’s Covid restrictions, which by the way change all the time as well.
Italy in June
My family didn’t do much travelling in 2020 for obvious reasons. However, with the arrival of vaccines and, as we hadn’t seen some family members for over two years, we decided to be more adventurous in 2021. We finally got to see the “new” BER airport for the first time in June 2021, when we travelled to Italy to visit my parents. I’m afraid to say it wasn’t love at first sight. There was an air traffic control strike in Italy that day, so Ryanair changed all its flight times. The problem was that the airport screens were still showing the original times, so we witnessed scenes of panic as passengers arrived at the airport thinking that they had missed their flights. The queues for check-in and security were so long that we almost did miss our flight. Luckily it was delayed.
Sweden in September
In September we visited our relatives in the south of Sweden. It all went well on the way there. The ferry from the port of Sassnitz in northern Germany left on time and, as we were vaccinated, we didn’t need to take any Covid tests, while our son had taken a self-test at school that morning. However, on the way back, one of the ferry engines broke down so the whole journey took much longer than expected and we ended up arriving in Berlin in the early hours of the morning after driving through the night in treacherous weather conditions. At least this particular problem wasn’t Covid related.
England in October
In October we flew to Gatwick airport to visit my grandmother for the first time in two years. We left Berlin on the first day of the school autumn break. Luckily, we were booked on the late afternoon flight, and we avoided the morning mayhem (queues so long that passengers missed their flights). Everything was going smoothly until we reached border control. I always use my UK passport when travelling to the UK, but this was my first time travelling to the UK under the new Brexit rules. The immigration officer took my passport and gave me a quizzical look and said something about needing to stamp it because the UK is no longer a member of the EU. After a few seconds of panic, I exclaimed: “But I’m Italian” and dutifully produced my Italian ID card. The man looked relieved. “That’s more like it” he said or something to that effect in German. I spent the rest of my time at the airport wondering whether they would let me back into the country. At that point I still didn’t have an Italian passport, but I do now. Once we arrived in England, we spent a fortune on our Day 2 PCR tests, as two out of three tests initially showed up as inconclusive, so we ended up taking and paying over £200 for two additional tests at a testing facility in a car park near Gatwick airport. When we flew back to Germany, our 9-year-old son had to isolate at home for five days as we were returning from a high-risk Covid area, and he wasn’t vaccinated. At that point vaccines for children under 12 hadn’t yet been approved in the EU.
Italy in December
Having spent Christmas on our own in Berlin in 2020, we decided we would try to fly to Italy to spend Christmas with my parents in 2021. It took me over two hours to sort out the necessary paperwork and book the required Covid tests. On Christmas Eve we arrived at BER airport three hours before departure. We weren’t going to take any chances this time and we checked in with plenty of time to spare. Luckily, we all tested negative on the day before the flight and at the airport in Palermo. We had planned to stay in Italy for ten days, but on 30 December the Robert Koch Institute in Germany announced that Italy would become a high-risk area on 1 January 2022. What did that mean? We started reading through all the rules and regulations and discovered that our son would again need to self-isolate for five days in Germany because he wasn’t fully vaccinated, missing a whole week of school. We quickly changed our flight to the one leaving the following morning, New Year’s Eve. Suddenly we needed to pack and get our son tested that same afternoon. On the morning of 31 December, we boarded the plane to Berlin, only to be told that there was a technical problem and were bussed back to the terminal. We ended up waiting for seven hours at the airport in Palermo for a substitute plane to arrive. We eventually landed in Berlin at 8 pm on New Year’s Eve, four hours before the new rules came into effect. So our son avoided isolation, but we were exhausted by the time we got home and didn’t feel too much like celebrating the New Year.
Travelling in Covid times is a nightmare, even if you’re tennis star Novak Djokovic. As you probably know, he recently spent four days in a detention centre in Australia because of doubts over his visa and he still faces the threat of deportation from the country. Travel requirements are complicated and rules may even change while you are mid-flight. Needless to say, I won’t be planning any more trips abroad for a while.
