flying with kids during a pandemic;

newsflash! we're in a new country now. i have a whole lot of things i want to vomit out of my chest at this moment, and ive been sitting on this for a week now, wanting to pen things down, so ill try my best to write of our experience flying during this really weird time.

we got news from Az's company that they want us over to the UK pronto. like 2 weeks notice pronto. and we kind of expected this coming but was still very hopeful that we could somehow delay flying over to the UK considering their covid cases were climbing up. we were in Perth, for almost 6 months already then. what was supposed to be a week stop turned into a 6 month stop due to border closures and covid restrictions. but i guess at that point of the call they were hopeful for things to be under control.  so after much discussion and do'a on our part, we decided alright lets just do this. mainly because in this current climate where employments are at risk, we are grateful for this opportunity that we are blessed with. 

there were very limited numbers of flights flying over to the UK, i think our choices were down to only 3 carriers. Emirates, Qatar or Singapore Airlines. we went with Emirates, as Qatar flights were often almost full and we didnt want to have that much of a crowd on a plane with the kids, and SIA had really strict mask requirements for kids above 2 years old. i think Hamza wouldnt have had a problem being told to wear a mask during a flight it was Umar that we were more worried about. 

Azhar and i had to take a covid test before our flight, 94 hours before they said, and had to present our results certificate before boarding the plane. the kids were exempted from taking the test. so all was good.

i packed so many wipes, hand sanitizers and masks for us all. but in the end were given a hygiene kit by emirates anyway.

our first leg of the flight, was a 10hr flight from Perth to Dubai. i for one am so afraid of flying. i hate flying and i hate night flights. i think about a week before our flight i would have panic attacks just thinking about the whole flight. what if the turbulence was crazy? what if we die? lol. but i read up quite a lot of articles online on turbulence and how normal it is for a flight to have one and that pilots are usually not concerned about them at all. it did help with my anxiety throughout the flight. my kids are also frequent flyers and im so glad they slept the whole way of our first leg. now i get it why parents usually love night flights for the kids. i didnt sleep at all during that first stretch. haha. i wasnt panicked alhamdulillah, and there were a few turbulence but not too crazy alhamdulillah too. but i was just so happy when we landed in dubai airport. thinking to myself we all made it alhamdulillah.

i digress. so we were told to have our mask on at all times during the flight except when eating and drinking. but considering the flight wasnt full at all, we realised the cabin crew were abit lenient with us. so many times they walked pass us and azhar and i werent wearing one simply because we almost had the whole section to ourselves there was no one infront of us or behind us, probably the closest was someone seated four rows ahead and that was it. i also was struggling to breathe in the mask. so i think they didnt mind it that we didnt have it on the whole time. 

 our second leg dubai - heathrow was a 7hr flight. which is usually the standard hours of flight my kids are used to. again i wasnt worried about them misbehaving as i knew they would be alright until i saw the massive crowd queuing for the flight! it was almost full this one. and the cabin crew kept reminding us to have our masks on. the boys were happily entertained with screens and food. Hamza slept again during this flight, almost the whole way and woke up just an hour before landing. Umar was just being Umar happily watching the screen with no headphones as it annoyed him. haha. 

i was quite anxious for this flight not for the flying or turbulence but simply because of the amount of people there were in that flight. when we arrived heathrow airport everyone got up from their seats like normal and just waited so close to each other to board off the plane. i remembered telling Azhar to just wait at our seats until it was our turn and luckily the people behind us still gave us way and did not jump in to get off first. i would have been annoyed with their impatience. 

i couldnt take any pictures while queuing at immigration but that itself is another experience. no social distancing at all, and the queue was so very long, and only had like 2 counters open considering we arrived noon time. 

my overall experience was alright. it has been a while since we last hopped on a plane, i must say weirdly i kinda missed it, i think the first leg was enjoyable and less stressful. also all cabin crews were in full PPE gears, and when we walked in the plane it smelt so fresh and clean , i still wiped all the tables and belts down with handwipes and sanitized everything i could possibly imagine Umar putting inside his mouth hehe.