V-Flyer

After a very pleasant 2 weeks as the world descended into chaos, this was our return journey. St Lucia closed to cruise ships halfway through and no visitors were allowed to enter either, so we kept an eye on our flight. Fortunately it was still scheduled as were the BA flights but they were all terminating by the 25th. We checked in quickly, and made our way to the departure lounge. There were many calls made for passengers to go the gate, and we presumed they were standby passengers getting late seat assignments. Boarded on time and the plane was absolutely full. It had been almost empty on the way in, apparently.

As we approached departure time, the captain announced a short delay as they had to top up the fuel a bit more. This was done and doors closed for an on-time departure. Then another announcement from him; the New York ATC area had closed do to Coronavirus issues, so we needed a new, longer flight plan staying further south than usual. So we needed another top-up. Unfortunately the BA flight due out an hour after us was being topped up (it hops from Grenada to St Lucia before heading off to Gatwick....) so we had to wait and ended up taking off 90 minutes late. The longer flight took almost an hour longer so we landed at 09:45 rather than the 7:25 scheduled time, to discover we didn't have a gate - too many parked planes! We were waiting at one gate and were then directed to a different one, which unfortunately didn't have a working jet bridge. So we waited for VS staff to arrive, and then buses, and then we enjoyed a tour of the airport, and then arrived at entrance doors - that were locked...
Eventually got to passport control over half an hour after we landed. Fortunately the bags had been offloaded and were waiting for us. For some reason the airport was only using carousels 8 to 10 so we walked through an empty hall to a very congested area where all the incoming flights were being unloaded. So much for Social Distancing!

The shuttle to the south terminal was very quiet as were the stations and trains. looked we avoided the main panics as our trip to supermarket this morning wasn't too bad.

Stay safe everyone.....