2020 seems to be the year of COVID-19, but for my husband and I, this is the year where we’d be migrating to Australia. Migrating, by itself, is already full of challenges but imagine adding another layer of stress because of a pandemic? If you were in our shoes, would you have moved forward or postponed until things were over (i.e. you don’t exactly know when)?
This year has been particularly difficult for many of us. We are all being affected by the consequences of COVID-19, some more than others. For us, it has made our migration journey to Australia a little bit more difficult. It has added more worries and uncertainties. It’s an adversity that we weren’t quite prepared for.
Securing A Flight To Australia
After finding out that my visa has been approved (around the end of December 2019), we immediately booked our tickets to Australia. We were set to fly on the 20th of March 2020, but as the day of our flight was approaching, COVID-19 has become a bigger problem all over the world. We were hoping that it would all be over by the time we were supposed to fly but we all know that it still hasn’t.
Just less than a week before our flight, travel restrictions were being set in most countries around the world. This of course included the Philippines (where we’re flying from) and Australia. Four days before our flight from the Philippines, we heard the news that everyone has about 72 hours to leave the country if they wanted. This was extremely close to our flight so we decided to re-book it to a closer date. To our frustration, it was announced the following day that Filipino citizens were no longer allowed to leave the country.
We felt defeated. There was nothing else that we could do but wait. About a month has passed and we were still quarantined at home. There were still no changes on the travel restrictions in the Philippines. A glimmer of hope appeared in the form of the special flights that were being organised by the Australian Embassy in the Philippines. This gave us the courage to just move forward with our plans. During that time, Australia also had travel restrictions in place but since I’m an immediate family member of an Australian citizen, I was able to acquire a travel exemption to enter Australia.
The special flight arrangements were done through the Philippine Airlines. There were a limited number of seats available yet there was a high demand. We had to register for one of the special flights online and then wait for the Philippine Airlines to give us a call to confirm and pay for our seats. As time passed by, our anxiety levels increased. We still haven’t received any call. Luckily, we saw a comment on Facebook saying that the said special flights were being advertised on the airline’s website. We went ahead and booked the seats ourselves. That was a huge weight lifted off our shoulders.
The Day of The Flight
We barely slept the night before our flight. Although we have secured our seats, there was still the issue of safely arriving at the airport and successfully boarding. Though I had the travel exemption to enter Australia, there was still the Philippines’ travel restrictions blocking certain Filipino citizens from leaving the country.
We had to go through a couple of checkpoints before finally arriving at the airport. We arrived really early as we wanted to give ourselves an ample amount of time in case there would be some issues along the way. At the airport, there were some people who have advised me that I was most likely not going to be allowed to leave but there were also some that said that I would be able to. If you knew me personally, you would know that I tend to really overthink and expect the worst situations. To be honest, I was really thinking of not pushing through anymore but my husband insisted that we’ve already gone that far, might as well give it a try. So that’s what we did.
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At The Airport In The Philippines (NAIA)
The first step was to check ourselves in. I nervously queued up and prepared all of the documentation that I thought would be asked of me. When it was my turn to check in, I handed them all to the airline’s staff. She checked my documents and then called someone to confirm if I was allowed to enter Australia. After confirming that I was indeed permitted to, she let me through. I took a breath of relief then another breath to calm myself down because the next step is to the immigration officer. I have prepared a little speech to explain my situation to the officer. I was basically prepared to beg! I gave him my passport along with my plane ticket and braced myself to give my speech . He looked at my passport and asked me who I was traveling with. After I said that I was traveling with my husband, he said something like “Oh, you’re one those who are exempted”, then he stamped my passport. My husband and I looked at each other in awe. We could not believe that we’ll make it!
Our flight was for late in the evening. We had hours and hours to spare. We basically waited the whole day for our flight to Brisbane. We didn’t bring any food with us which in hindsight was a very stupid idea. At least we brought some water. The Coronavirus has made this flight experience very different. All of the stores were closed except for this one tiny booth selling chips, soda, coffee, dumplings, and burgers. We wanted to hold off on eating as we wanted to keep our face masks on as much as possible to lessen our exposure to COVID-19 just in case. I got really hungry though so I bought some chips and biscuits just to ease our hunger a little bit. Most people were wearing masks. We even saw a guy wearing a full body PPE!
The airline’s staff checked our documents one more time before having us seated in the area for people that were about to board. They also gave us some food and a bottle of water. Our flight was a little bit delayed but we’re finally able to relax when we were boarding, at last! Social distancing was being practiced as we boarded. There were sanitizing measures in place, and the flight attendants were completely geared up. You would think that people would be seated apart from each other in the airplane but we weren’t. I think it was so that more people can be flown back to Australia.
Documentations/Forms
Since there’s the COVID-19 situation, there were additional documentations/forms that were provided to us. These were:
- Important Update For Passengers (Information Sheet) – Contains relevant COVID-19 updates for passengers arriving to Australia.
- COVID-19 Isolation Declaration Card
- Incoming Passenger Card
The Flight
At the start of the flight, everyone was talking to each other about their COVID-19 experience in the Philippines and how relieved they were that they’re finally going to be able to come back home. The flight went well for the most part except for the little scares that I got when I’d hear some coughing and sneezing. Not something you’d prefer hearing during this time, would it?
After around 7 hours, we were finally flying over Australia. I knew Australia’s a beautiful country but it is more than I expected. I saw the “Australian sky” changing colors as the sun was rising. I fell in love with its seas that were glimmering with different shades of blue, its blocks of houses that has a certain appeal, the charming outback, and the other parts of the land that’s covered in some lush flora. Seeing these, everything started to feel real. It began to sink in that after the lengthy process, we’ll now be living in the land down under.
Conclusion
From cancelled flights to travel restrictions, this pandemic has sure made our journey to Australia a long one. It was far from how I imagined it would be but I’m extremely grateful that despite the circumstances, we still managed to make it through. Now, here we are, enjoying the beauty of this country everywhere we look.
Disclaimer: All content and information in this post is for purposes of sharing my experiences only, does not constitute professional advice and does not establish any kind of professional-client relationship.
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