jb2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by NickB

OK, then if this is your position and since every business traveler has at least as high a chance as an overnighting KLM employee of being stranded abroad, what you are arguing for is that business travel abroad should not be allowed

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Neither. I am arguing that if a state determines that it is not willing to exempt any particular group of travelers from their pandemic measures in order to benefit their economy (Australia, Hong Kong, etc), as is their good right, then that group has the right to determine if they are willing to subject their employees to those measures. KLM has long had a policy that they are not willing to risk leaving crew members behind in countries that do not allow crew members to travel back non-working after a positive test. ABN Amro has the right to determine whether or not they are willing to send bankers to countries that do not allow bankers to return home non-banking after a positive test. Nothing has changed about KLM’s policy other than the fact that we are now talking about the home base, which is the ultimate destination of every trip, so every trip is now in jeopardy. Maybe your employer is O.K. with the risk if you getting stuck in a foreign country for who knows how long when you aren’t even really ill - I’m glad that mine is not.

YYCCL3

I asked the crew onboard my long haul flight and they are as in the dark as we are. They were constantly checking emails all morning as they were told negotiations were still ongoing. They expect to find out mid flight whether they will do a stopover and work the return tomorrow or turnaround and go right back to Schiphol. They are really stressed.

A nice touch on this flight so far - the captain visited all cabins to do a personal greeting pre departure instead of over the PA as is customary.

brunos

Japan has roughly the same 14-day average as the Netherlands, but with a population of 126M compared to 17M.

Digicola

The point of this green list was to allow countries with exceptionally low infection numbers access to the EU. There are countries with lower rates than Japan that aren't on the list.

Even with such a low rate Japan peaked at around 3000 daily cases in Tokyo alone about a week or two ago, hardly comparable to other green countries.
I think it's important to take absolute numbers into account when offering uncontrolled access into a country. I just find it rather surprising that the local government can take such drastic measures yet make odd exceptions at the same time.

I'm not one to complain, I benefited from this as getting a covid test on time in Japan is a pain in itself and happens to be rather expensive (although this has improved this past month).

ChandlerWalker

Been on the phone with DL quite a bit over the last couple days. Scheduled to return from KGL via AMS Feb 19. DL says they are aware of the situation but won't really act (in my situation) until it knows for sure that the flights have been cancelled.

Ditto

The "green list" is not really being maintained, since its inception in July (or was it June?) several countries have been removed in the first few weeks, and I think Rwanda is the only one that was added.

Rambol

I agree that this list is very strange. For example, I noticed that Taiwan is not regarded as a safe country. I think they've had one of the lowest infection rates of any country in the world, with a peak of less than 30 infections a day, but they are still regarded as high risk.

the810

If you look closely at the list, it always only included countries that are either close to the EU or a major country/economy. (And Rwanda for whatever reason.) Smaller countries were always ignored. As a most extreme example, small islands that never had a single covid case were never included despite the risk being literally zero.

I know a person who flew from Palau (0 cases) via Seoul (a low risk country at the time) to Vienna and they still legally had to quarantine and get tested on arrival. Ridiculous.

mpkz

Yes, clearly country-level correlations are the best way to look at masks. It's probably worth mentioning that your well-known open country recommends wearing masks (at least on public transport), has more than 10x the deaths of its neighbors and worse economic damage. I would recommend a trip to AKL, SIN or HKG to see the outcome of a zero-COVID policy (instead of "living with the virus"), but unfortunately it seems that they have prioritized the lives of people and the well-being of their small businesses over the economic situation of their national airlines and banned most inbound travel.. Maybe ask them whether wearing masks on public transport is really the end of the world if it allows for normal levels of economic activity (as opposed to a 70%-economy where a large group of people are afraid to go to these open restaurants that you talk about for fear of getting the virus).

the810

It started doing so on 7th of January, so all previous results exclude that meassure. Furthermore, it only applies for four hours per day (7-9 and 16-18). And finally, compliance is relatively low - people wore them during first days of the recommendation, now it's around 50% (better in some locations, worse in others), at least here in Stockholm. I recently had to take a bus around 17:00, in the middle of recommended masks period, and out of 14 people on the bus I counted 4 masks. And virtually no one wears them outside those 4 hours - 10% at most.

Oh and it excludes services with assigned seats, e.g. long-distance trains. When we travelled from Stockholm to Gothenburg at 17:30 last week, ZERO people in our carriage wore a mask.

And half as many deaths as some countries with extreme mask mandates...

(By the way, as far as I'm aware, NO and FI don't have broad mask mandates. DK does but - surprisingly - they are the worst of the neighbours when it comes to covid.)

You're making an assumption that their ecomony is open because of masks on public transportation. There is no data supporting this, quite the opposite, European countries that require masks on public transportation aren't more open than those that don't. The single most open country in Europe never had a mask mandate of any kind.

8420PR

I just got an email, sms and in-app notification that for my flight next week i need a rapid antigen test 4 hours before departure.

my take: flights will operate as normal.

ChandlerWalker

Are you transiting or entering NL?

8420PR

Transiting.

ChandlerWalker

Okay - so the flight schedule will probably be determined by ability to get the test 4 hours before... some locations that won't be possible.

Will have to see about KGL...

Digicola

As per my post above, Rwanda should be part of the exceptions.