AIBU to be sickened by the attitude towards stranded Brits

[millerjane]

"They saw this coming so they should've planned accordingly"
"well I cancelled my holiday..."
"They should stay put we have enough on our plates"

My relative had a hellish journey home from NZ (over 56 hours to get home). She would have been stranded had she not bought a ticket and defied the orders of her company to hold station and wait for Head Office to make a decision. She's a young girl straight out of university. Have some empathy.

She is now helping elderly neighbours with food and medication if that makes a difference (it shouldn't).

Repatriation flights were much quicker for some other countries I understand.

FCO probably under-resourced, and let us not forget who was Foreign Secretary until just over a year ago, and that the current one will be in charge should the PM be incapacitated.

She has said some of her friends have already been repatriated. It does seem the UK Gov are behind.

However I can imagine there is a hell of a lot of juggling to arrange right now.

Coronavirus has been diagnosed in the UK since January and Wuhan and Italy have provided clear examples of what the UK could expect. I'm baffled that anyone planning trips in Feb/March when infection was well reported and deaths had started to occur was taken by surprise!

I travel regularly for work. I put my travel plans on hold in mid-January when it was clear that the virus was spreading from China

It certainly dont think people should be cruel. However, "most" of these people went on holiday and were fully aware of the risks. My sympathy can only go so far if you are going to put yourself in that position

A majority of those I know in this situation had jobs and lives in their stranded country. Year long visas etc.

think people are forgetting how quickly this escalated and assuming those stranded are silly people who just wanted to go on their holibobs and hang the advice.

it didn't though. There had been warnings for weeks. What happened is that people refuse to take them seriously. They waited until it was obviously serious, the last possible minute and then are stuck.
I am not bitter against anyone who went away, but they can't pretend it all came with a massive shock.

@wibblewobblejiggle
Is she in touch with the British Embassy in the country she is stuck in. I have a relationship stuck in a country. They thankfully managed to get flights home after having several cancelled.
The embassy is arranging flights, which are still expensive. But they are getting people home. I joined a stranded in _ facebook group and it was a great source of information

I’m baffled that anyone got on a flight to Australia & NZ in March. Australia was putting everyone into mandatory self isolation from 14th March. Flights were already scarce that week, became scarcer last week, and I’ve been told today that the last Qantas flight to Perth has now landed & there won’t be any more. My employer (along with most big corporates) banned all travel/transit through Asia in early February, so a company willingly flying employees out would be vanishingly rare.

I have a little more sympathy for people stuck in Peru & now India where they were given hours notice of the shutdown. A good friend of mind downed tools & sprinted for SFO airport the moment shelter in place was announced.

As for people still on cruise ships, stupidity truly knows no bounds. There’s been problems with cruise ships being refused port access since early February!

so why did they travel?
They weren’t travelling. They lived and worked abroad. Not travelling, not on holiday.

@Homemadearmy Yes, filled out every form, called every person imaginable.

She just has to wait now.
Thank you so much for that I will search now.

I have huge sympathy for anyone who travelled before it became obvious how serious this was getting.
I have far less sympathy for those who just defiantly went ahead with holiday plans on the last few weeks. They showed no concern for the role they were playing in helping to spread this, and are now paying the cost.

I think it’s different for people already abroad long term who maybe just haven’t acted fast enough or have been waiting for instructions from work although in their position I personally can say I would have cut my losses far earlier and got as quickly out of dodge as possible.

Everyone is just astounded at the people still going on holiday. The landlord of a pub local to us flew out to Spain, found the country in lockdown (who knew?!), spent two days in a hotel room and was on a flight home by Sunday. Just why go in the first place?!

I went on holiday to Australia in the first half of February. I'm sure the all foreseeing MNters knew how severe the pandemic was going to be, but I'd say for many of us it was mostly a Chinese problem at that time: Spain & Italy had 3 cases, the UK had a handful (mostly linked to the guy in Brighton), Iran didn't have any.

I did manage to get an early flight out of Australia when things started to look very serious, but it was difficult to know what to do. The foreign office would say try to get home while airlines discouraged anyone from phoning if you weren't scheduled to fly in the next 48 hours. In the end I did phone, and spent 8 hours on hold before I managed to speak to someone. Not great when you're racking up international call charges. I got lucky in that I managed to get one of the last affordable seats, because most flights were going for £4k upward (for 1 single ticket...).

I think many of abroad had not foreseen that so many countries would close their borders and so many airlines would stop operating almost completely. Before I managed to book a new return flight I was mentally prepared for having to maybe spend an extra week or 2 in Australia if my flight got cancelled, not being stuck there for 2+ months, which is the reality that many now face.

Most are not stranded.

Sitting out CV in Australia or here makes no difference.

Have you actually tried to get a flight from Aus to the UK?!

There was a thread in Mumsnet about two weeks ago where someone asking if they would still go on holiday given that Coronavirus was getting so extended.

80% said yes, because

1. had paid a lot of money and they were not going to loose it
2. what’s life without risks?
3. many of them still travelled to Italy, Spain and remote destinations even when the illness was already taking over over there.

Now they are saying the government has abandoned them. I really cannot understand why, unless we are a nanny state.

My friend is trapped in Peru, in a hostel as the virus closes in around them, with the risk of being thrown out on the street. He was on a long trek and everything was normal before he went. When he arrived back to civilisation he was given 5 hours to get out of Peru before the borders closed but didn't make it. There is no travel anywhere now in Peru so they can't get to the rescue planes. Peru shut down early and with only hour of warning. It is a terrible and terrifying situation for him and those stranded. They're in a nightmare where they could die alone and far from home.

’Ellie Hicks, 21, and her three friends are stranded in Bali, Indonesia, because of the coronavirus.

The group were just a few weeks into a three-month backpacking trip when the government urged all British nationals to return to the UK.’

Like these idiots in the BBC website - who went off on a 3 month trip 3 weeks before total lockdown. THREE weeks. When there are travel warnings place, the virus was rapidly spreading. We had cases here in early Feb - from someone who’d travelled, and infected friends while skiing then brought it here. All widely reported.

TheMother exactly

I'm an expat and overall have little sympathy, I'm sorry. If you were looking at flying to or from my country it was obvious that borders were going to be closed. In fact it happened later than I predicted. I had family visiting and we made the call to cut their holiday short by a week and they could actually have gotten (just) to the end of that week.

Obviously I have sympathy for individuals but these are usually the same people who were insisting we were all overreacting three weeks ago. OP, it's hardly the end of the world bring stuck in New Zealand. Most people I know who really didn't want to get stuck in the country they in shifted at least two weeks ago.

Yes be kind and I am kind to individuals who are stuck in difficult situations but don't try and claim it was impossible to see this coming!

I remember one mn er flying to Thailand against everyone saying don’t. I wonder if all fine.

I can't say I have much sympathy for people stranded. Yes,there are some circumstances where it's understandable but the majority are just idiots. The same people who pay no attention to the guidelines and then are surprised they get sick.
It was obvious in January not to travel. It was obvious what was going to happen. So anyone who chose to travel then has no-one to blame but themselves if they can't get home.

DPs work cancelled all overseas travel from the end of January, even U.K. travel/meets in person.
We re-booked personal travel plans early Feb. Most of the people stranded left when they shouldn’t have or turned down the chance to return when they could, and waited. I’m not unsympathetic but not so I think we should be moving hell and high water to get people back from Oz or other places where they’re as safe as if they were here for the most part.