We were all hopeful that we were on the downside of COVID-19. The Delta variant was waning, more people were getting vaccinated, normal life was resuming. I was even able to spend a week on a cruise ship.
Then the Omicron variant of COVID-19 erupted.
Just in time for Christmas.
But I had already made plans for Christmas – Dec 22 to 25 with Jett’s siblings in Austin, then fly back early on Christmas Day to have dinner with my sons in Ft Myers. It was a risk to travel, but as I am fully vaccinated, I judged that the risk was minimal. So on Dec 22 I flew to Austin via Dallas/Ft Worth. The flights were smooth and, more importantly, on time. While people were pretty good about wearing the requisite face masks on the plane and in the airports, social distancing was practically impossible – there were a LOT of people traveling. Both planes were nearly 100% full.
This had nothing to do with COVID, but I was amazed by the number of ground crew who were involved in unloading the baggage at DFW: 7 (you can see only 5 in the photo – 2 more were out of frame to the right). Because DFW is such a huge hub for American Airlines, bags for passengers changing planes had to be distributed to 4 different terminals. I think this used to be done “automatically” by a very complex system that never worked right. I think they have given up and the sorting is now done manually as the bags are unloaded from the plane. A failure of technology remedied by hiring more humans. The Luddites would love it.
I arrived 20 minutes early, but sister-in-law Christine was there to meet me. We spent the afternoon shopping and having lunch before heading back to the Austin airport to collect brother-in-law Ray and his wife Kim who were flying in from Boston. They, too, were a few minutes early and rush hour traffic into the airport was horrendous, but the timing worked out perfectly as Ray and Kim reached the curb just as we pulled up.
While air travel during Omicron was indisputably risky, the airlines performed well. If we don’t get infected while in Austin then our Christmas journeys can end happily.
Stay tuned.