Tense Traveling on Thursday/Friday

[leehljp]

Linda & I head back to Japan (Nagoya) on Thursday, arriving on Friday after crossing the International Date line.

A friend went Monday and called after she arrived. Here is what they did because of the swine flu:

• Plane landed and detained at the gate for two hours before people could deplane.
• In the two hours on the plane, health officials interviewed every person on the plane in their seats with these questions:
- Have you had a cough in the past two weeks?
- Have you had a fever in the past two weeks?
- Have you had a runny nose in the past two weeks?
- Have you been around anyone who has had a cold, flu, fever, or cough in the past two weeks?
• They point an infrared camera at your head to determine if you have a temperature.
• They quarantine anyone with a fever or anyone who answers yes to any of the questions.

• IF you are within 3 rows of anyone who has a fever or who coughed a lot on the 12 hour flight, you will be detained for 10 days at a hotel and virtually quarantined there.

Going to be tense, but we leave Thursday AM for Detroit and then on to Nagoya.

Remember us and or pray for us.

[jackellis]

Traveling even a short distance on a commercial airline these days is a pain in the butt. International travel ratchets up the stress. But it's probably better to submit to the questions and two hours of inconvenience than to be locked out altogether.

Good luck.

[crokett]

Wow Hank! I will be praying for you that you do not get detained. And they are doing this to all the international flights or just the ones from certain countries?

[JR]

Most international arrivals lounges have a Health Desk. Only in Japan have I actually seen any activity at those desks, most of which are unmanned.

The Japanes are careful, to put it politely, about foreign influences of all kinds.

JR

[cgallery]

Oh my, I sure hope is goes more smoothly for you than it did for your friend. Not sure those efforts would help in any event.

[smorris]

I had to go to Kuala Lumpur a couple weeks ago. They walked up and down the aisles 3 times spraying Lysol over the passengers just before we landed. It was lovely...welcome to Malaysia.

I had a sinus infection and was sneezing and blowing like crazy for about 2 hours once the sinus blockage blew out at 30,000 ft. No one asked me a single question about it, right through customs.

Good luck with your travels. Is processing into Japan as rigorous as going into Singapore? They are always a hassle.

[SARGE..g-47]

Good luck Hank.. I pretty much don't fly anymore as it has become such a hassle over-all and I say that as my BIL works for Delta and gets free tickets for family on occasion. At one time I flew almost weekly and have jumped out of 489 of them before they arrived back on the ground.

Funny how you get more conservative as you get older as I have no real interest in either flying or skydiving anymore.

[Ed62]

From what I hear, people in the U.S. who have the swine flu haven't had problems any more severe than the flu we get every year. Does it seem to be worse in Japan?

We'll remember you in our prayers for an uneventful trip.

Ed

[LCHIEN]

part of the overhyped scare.
All those questions, knowing the results of answering yes is enough to make most people lie. Making asking them more or less useless.

Let me ask this. If you coughed two or three times a week ago, knowing an afffirmative answer would get you quaranteened for 10 days, would you answer yes when they asked you if you have coughed in the last two weeks?

[leehljp]

Wow Hank! I will be praying for you that you do not get detained. And they are doing this to all the international flights or just the ones from certain countries?

From what I heard, just certain countries where swine flu has been confirmed.

They don't have it there but they are paranoid somewhat.

[Kristofor]

My parents just got back from visiting my brother in Japan. They said they didn't have any swine flu checks/etc. either direction.

This is what they did have to deal with: http://www.kadena.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123148973 I was watching their flight online and wondered about the hard 90 degree turn in the middle of Canada...

[MikeMcCoy]

My parents just got back from visiting my brother in Japan. They said they didn't have any swine flu checks/etc. either direction.

This is what they did have to deal with: http://www.kadena.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123148973 I was watching their flight online and wondered about the hard 90 degree turn in the middle of Canada...

With all the talk about pilot training (or lack of) recently, I would wonder about an aircraft crew that had not noticed an unexpected fuel loss of over 36000 pounds.

[leehljp]

Arrived back in Japan!

We arrived at the gate about 15 minutes earlier than expected. Everyone was told to stay seated.

I am guessing about 10 Japanese health officials entered. With LOML and me being in the back section, we couldn't see how many inspectors were in the business/FC section. There were 6 for the cattle section!

These guys entered with tyvek type of suits and head gear with goggles and masks. We had been given a form to fill out before hand that contained questions concerning illness related to the swine flu and contact with people who exhibited symptoms of the swine flu.

Also on the form were addresses and phone numbers in Japan and our seat location on the plane.

It took about 1 hour to complete the "inspection" that included a person walking down each isle and aiming an infra-red video camera at each person, followed by two people taking the forms and asking a couple of questions as to our point for being in Japan and location to be found.

After that we had to wait about 10 minutes for them to go back through and check their paper work. They came back on the plane and went to a couple of specific seats and asked those people a couple of questions, then left. In another 5 minutes we were allowed to de-plane.

The whole process delayed us about 1 hour and 15 minutes to complete this process on a full 747.

Because our luggage was out before we were, getting through emigrations, luggage claim and customs was the quickest we have had in 20+ years.

[Ed62]

Cool! Glad it worked out well for you.

Ed

[JR]

There's nothing quite like twiddling your thumbs for an hour after a 10-hour flight. Good job keeping your cool!

JR