Travel in the time of coronavirus

Cancelled flights, missed connections, airport chaos, and a 72 hour journey home

Of course I knew that travelling to Europe would carry some risks. But as I breezed through my five-week holiday, I skimmed over news articles about airport chaos and considered myself lucky. On what was supposed to be the last day of my holiday, that luck finally ran out.

I was on a shuttle bus to Reykjavik Airport when I received an email telling me that my WizzAir flight to London was delayed. I’d booked a Malaysian Airlines flight from Heathrow to Melbourne the following morning, but that was fine because I’d left myself a 12-hour buffer.

By the time I arrived at the airport, the flight had been cancelled. Dozens of passengers were moved to one side of the check-in queue — not, as we believed, so that somebody could tell us what was going on but just to get us out of the way. We were left on our own to rebook travel, receiving another email telling us the next WizzAir flight was two days away but we had one night’s accommodation and food booked for us.

Eventually, an airport staff member, who did not work for WizzAir, told us there was a shuttle bus outside waiting to take us to the hotel. While I was still desperately trying to find another way to London, we were informed that we either had to get on that bus or miss out on a…