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Attention!
Today’s post is about bringing awareness to an issue you might not have thought about – and that is the plight of thousands of Aussies stuck overseas, and wanting to come home.
A big thank you to The Aussie Minimalist Doc for highlighting this issue.
Although COVID-19 numbers are starting to settle down here in Australia, overseas the numbers tell a different story.
The 2nd wave is well and truly upon the UK and Eurozone, and are escalating dramatically in India, the Middle East and the US amongst others.
As you can imagine, there are thousands of Australian citizens in those areas who want to, but cannot come back.
Why?
Because, of the weekly arrival caps imposed by federal and state governments.
The current figure is 6,000.
Why are there caps?
To ease the pressure on hotel quarantine, where newly arrived passengers must be self-isolated for 14 days.
Hm, fair enough.
And you would think that with a weekly cap of 6,000 then it’ll take what, a couple of months at most for the nearly 30,000 Aussies stuck overseas to come home?
WRONG!
Arrivals are coming in at a trickle, mainly because for airlines, it is not commercially viable to fly economy class passengers.
No, frustrated airlines have acknowledged they are cancelling economy seats, to focus on the more expensive passengers to remain profitable.
This has meant that some flights landing in Australia, have had fewer than 30 passengers, and sometimes only 4 economy class passengers!
But what about for the many Aussies who have bought plane tickets for thousands, if not tens of thousands?
Well, flight cancellations are strife and in many cases, confusion reigns over the eligibility of refunds from airlines.
What’s more, there are stories of people being told to go to homeless shelters because they have nowhere else to go.
Sigh.
So by virtue of bureaucratic red-tape, stodgy politics and the chase for profits – everyday citizens suffer.
This is just plain UN-AUSTRALIAN.
Seriously, I don’t understand why we are not flying in military planes to alleviate the burden from commercial airlines?
We’ve done it before, why can’t we do it again?
As you can imagine, there’s quite a few social media groups which have sprung up to try to force the governments and powers-to-be to take more action.
If you want to help, join some of these groups (here and here) so we can work together to bring more Australians home.
Spare a thought for those of us who can’t return to the lucky country.
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2 Comments
The Aussie Minimalist Doc
Thanks The Frugal Samurai for bringing to light the current state of affairs for the Aussies stranded overseas through no fault of their own.
To all the Aussies who are trying to come home and reading this post, no matter where in the world, don’t give up trying because this too shall pass.
The Frugal Samurai
You’re very welcome. We should and must do more to help each other get through this.