There’s no denying that 2020 has been hard on everyone. And I wanted to shed some light on how it’s been for expats because I believe there has been a common misconception on the ease of expats getting back in to Australia.

The harsh reality

It has not been easy. I have been one of the very fortunate ones to have only had one flight cancelled and I would like to clarify one point. Australian expats are not travellers. We are not people who are on a 3-week Contiki holiday in Europe or people who are backpacking across South East Asia for 6-weeks. We are people who have taken years to build lives overseas. So it’s not that easy to just ‘up and leave’ our life, even if it is because of a pandemic. Logically it should be okay and it should be fine because we are Australian citizens but sadly it just isn’t that simple because of the flight caps. To my knowledge we are the only country that has enforced restrictions on Australians getting back home and last time I checked there was about 30,000+ expats still stranded overseas because of this restriction. And unless you have paid an extortionate amount for a business or first class flight, the odds of you getting bumped off are high.

There are also a tonne of factors that need to be considered when relocating back home. Things like leases, phone contracts, belongings left in the office, packing and organising what to keep or donate, what to courier back home, what to bring on your flight, and on top of that, a backup plan if everything fails and your flight gets cancelled.

When can you be allowed to fly home? How will you get income if your work contract was due to end? Where will you live? Where do you go if you can’t get an extension on your visa? Their advise to me was to fly to France and stay there for 2 days and come back as a tourist. But what do you do if you can’t afford to upgrade to a one-way business class flight (which FYI costs a minimum £3,500-12,000)? People have been bumped off their flights upon check-in at the airport. Yes at the airport. Then out of desperation, people were living in the airport because they had no place else to go. Until they were told to go to a homeless shelter. Others have set up GoFundMe pages or decided to drain their Superannuation funds for a slightly higher chance of getting home. See? The media never told you about this did they? It just isn’t that simple.

Barriers to getting home

Some airlines are now requiring a mandatory negative Covid test at least 96 hours before you are due to fly out. There has been a lot of talk about how to get this test for free through the NHS. However, this information is always changing. So my suggestion would be to call the NHS to see if this is still possible. Otherwise I would just pay for the test. If you’re in London, Boots on Oxford Street (near Bond Street) does Covid tests for people who need this for flying. You need to time this so that you are within the 96 hour time bracket, otherwise you may get refused entry on your flight. Call your airline regularly as some things may change daily without notice.

Stay tuned for the next part: Hotel Quarantine in Sydney.

Yours sincerely,
Paola
The Seasoned Traveller