On edge at check-in
A week after making my bookings, the time has come for me to depart. This is very unlike the old style of travel when I may have made bookings up to 14 months in advance on AirAsia.
The 1810 departure on Emirates meant that I had time to fit in a walk in the morning and make a vegetable curry to finish up the vegetables in the fridge, putting them in the freezer for Kim in the coming days.
We had had a week of nearly continuous rain and I was pleased to leave as there was more rain forecast. And Auckland is expected to be in a Covid-19 lockdown for another month.
At Auckland airport 3h prior to departure, there was a queue of about 12 people ahead of me being served by 6 counters. With stringent document checks (eg. vaccination certificates, Covid-19 test results) it took over 20 minutes for me to get served.
The fact that I was able to get to Cyprus via Dubai without vaccination and a test was too good to be true. I had checked several times this requirement and there was no doubt. Nevertheless I was still on edge.
At check-in the lady asked for my vaccination certificate and then asked if I had a test. Upon re-reading, she realised that starting my journey in New Zealand I didn’t need one. And then she also noted that New Zealand vaccination certificates, are not recognised, if one was needed.
She got a supervisor to check as the requirements are complex and hard to read. The Cyprus one is reasonably straight forward but for some countries, one would need a literature degree!
I was so relieved to finally get my boarding passes, the first for Dubai and the next for Larnaca. I was about the only person through immigration and security. I had a little more than an hour spare before I needed to go to gate.
New Zealand’s Covid-19 developments
During my wait I caught upon the news that the government had expanded the mandatory vaccination requirements. Initially only border workers and the like needed to be vaccinated or can be fired. This was expanded to healthcare and education. Today, it was expanded to high-contact professions like those in restaurants, gyms etc.
Earlier this year the government had indicated that there wouldn’t be any use of vaccine passports domestically. But the obviously woke up to the risk of Covid-19 and the Delta variant.
Flying to Kuala Lumpur
The flight was rather empty with many people having entire rows, with empty rows present. I had a row of four seats. Most passengers were Indian and it took forever for crew to serve special meals (eg. vegetarian) before my regular meal was served. The two meals were of very delicious!
I took half a sleeping pill followed by another half a bit later, and slept well enough for 6h till the second meal was served before landing in KL. For three flights totalling about 22h (or 27h including stops), I was dressed for comfort with baggy drawstring trousers. I certainly didn’t regret it.