"I'm leaving, on a jet plane..." Just not anytime soon

I didn't actually have any concrete travel plans to cancel. 

Not like my brother Rick, who missed out on a trip to San Juan and Vieques. Not like my niece Molly, who didn't get to go to New Orleans with a friend. Not like my cousin Mary Beth who had a couple of cruises in the works. Not like my cousin Ellen. She and her husband Mike had planned on celebrating their 50th anniversary with a trip to London with their kids and grandkids. (That's a really hard one to swallow...) 

No, I didn't have any concrete travel plans to cancel. But surely I would have gone somewhere this year, somewhere that would have involved leaving on a jet plane.

No longer. Sadly, it's going to be a while.

And it looks like there'll probably be a new normal that could make the post 9-11 and post-shoebomber airline security measures look like nothing. Especially for those of us who cracked a little of the code by signing up for Global Entry or TSA pre-clearance, so we don't have to take our shoes off. 

Here's what's being predicted:

You get to the airport four hours before your flight is scheduled to depart. (Source: Boston Globe)

And we thought two hour in advance was a drag.

When you arrive, an airport security guard checks to make sure you’re wearing a mask and that you have tickets for a flight before allowing you inside the terminal.

Well, the mask won't be any big deal for those of us who have been donning that not-so-gay apparel for a while now, those of us who live in places where mask compliance is pretty darned high. (On a walk the other day, I saw just four maskless people over the age of 6. This was in the Boston Public Garden. While not as jam-packed as the Lake of the Ozarks pool that's making the YouTube rounds, the park was pretty crowded on a lovely, sunny afternoon. So it wasn't like these maskless wonders were walking around a mostly deserted area. Anyway, the people I saw were a middle aged couple and what appeared to be their daughter and her BF. Sure makes it easier to spot idiots when it's a case of mask/no mask. I wanted to go up to them and say, "You're not from around these parts, are you.") 

As for not being able to get into the terminal without a ticket? And we thought it was bad when a non-traveler could no longer get to the gate. Ah, for the good old days when you could bring your elderly mother right to the door of the plane... When you could greet someone when they arrived. 

In the departures hall, thermal imaging cameras are scanning the crowd to determine whether there are any individuals with abnormally high temperatures walking about. 

I'm all for trying to ID the Typhoid Marys, but what else will they be scanning for? Scary stuff. 

And there's more. 

Indonesia is spraying deplaning passengers with disinfectant. Hong Kong is putting outgoing passengers through a 40 second stay in a disinfecting clean room. Ah, for the good old days of 'don't drink the water and don't breathe the air.'

There's talk of eliminating aisle-clogging waits for the bathroom by making folks raise their hand if they need to use the toilet. Hope I never run into a flight attendant who was a nun in a past life. 

Bringing a roller bag onto a flight may be a thing of the past, so that flyers won't take up all that time trying to stuff their too-large bags in the overhead bin. (Good. Except in the case of me, who packs light so I can carry on.) Then there's this:

Cabin service on most domestic flights has either been suspended or modified.

Well, that's not exactly a great loss. Sure, I'll miss the tiny bag of pretzels or the Biscoff cookie, but I'm happy to pack my own, if this keeps up. 

And to keep things sparkling clean and germ-free:

Just last week, United Airlines announced a partnership with Clorox. 

At least now we know where all the Clorox wipes have gotten to.  

As for my travels:

A survey released Friday by the personal finance website FinanceBuzz found that nearly half of the respondents said they don’t expect to get back on a plane in the next year. Of that number, 23 percent said that there’s nothing the airlines could do to make them feel comfortable about flying before there’s a vaccine.

That's me. A 23 percenter! 

Until there's a vaccine, I'm def in the no fly zone. 

Staycation it is! (Yawn...)