After having traveled on 21 flights within two months, most of which were roundtrips to Europe, this was going to be our last trip before what was anticipated to be the closing of international travel as we knew it in March of 2020.
Traveling to Lima would be wonderful and a great city to visit; however, I was concerned that, at any time, the news of the COVID-19 virus would come out and restrict our return to the United States. I was worried about potential travel limitations and the potential of having to stay in Lima during an unexpected lockdown.
With the potential of having no control over this non-rev trip, it made me very nervous. I could not sleep well as I constantly listened to the worldwide news about the Pandemic. The ironic twist was that we were convinced by another Delta agent to go to Lima, Peru!
During a lighthearted dinner discussion, my wife Maureen and I told this other agent that, while we were upset with him for suggesting that we go to Lima, we loved and thanked him for the suggestion because if not for him, we would have instead gone to Portugal (Lisbon and Porto) and found ourselves in a much worse situation.
Lima itself was great but not a perfect city by any measure. With an inefficient airport in a terrible area and no rapid public transportation from the airport to the central city, there was absolutely “drop dead” traffic everywhere. But at the same time, Lima is a beautiful city with a spectacular tourist area that is virtually restricted and protected for tourists.
The city’s tourist area is Mille Flores, which has the best hotels, restaurants, shopping, and beaches. There are actually three major areas of the city; Mille Flores, the Old Historic Central City, and San Isidro – the business center of Lima.
We stayed at the beautiful J.W. Marriott Hotel Lima, a gorgeous 5-star hotel at a great rate overlooking the beaches in Mille Flores. The other Delta agent stayed at a very lovely Ibis Hotel (Accor brand), one block from our hotel, at about half the cost of our hotel. We ate in restaurants with views of the beaches each night, and the trip was wonderful. Temperatures in March were in the low 80s each day and in the low 70s at night… perfect.
Our trip was a 3-day, 2-night vacation (unlike most of our other trips, which are typically 2-day, 1-night trips to Europe). After touring Mille Flores during our first day in Lima and the Old Historic Central City during our second day, I tried to convince the others that we had seen what we came to see and the last day would only be a duplication of other days. I suggested that we should leave one day early, but they couldn’t be convinced.
On March 12th, I listened on the internet that Dr. Fauci was in discussions with then President Trump and that there was going to be an announcement coming at 9:00 p.m. (8:00 p.m. in Lima). The news that I had most feared came over my iPhone: the United States would close all air transportation entry from Europe to the United States. I suddenly had the awful feeling of being a citizen locked out of my own country, and it was a truly terrible feeling.
All I could think about was that flights from Europe to the United States would sell out immediately, which they did, and that travel from Europe to the United States would shift to go via South America and sell out. All flights did sell out once Peru announced that the country would also ban all flights to and from the United States within the next one to one and a half days.
We immediately paid the bill for dinner, ran to the hotel across the street, packed the limited clothes we brought on the trip, changed our non-revenue reservations to revenue reservations, and grabbed a taxi to the airport (while some others took a bigger gamble and kept their non-revenue status).
The traffic in the central city was awful, as in the past. Lima Airport requires a minimum of three hours for check-in, and we were way under this time limit, but we checked in quickly and then were stuck on what seemed like a “Disney World Line” in order to get through Immigration and Customs.
The Delta flight was still wide open(because of the general covid threat) but with 5 flights leaving at virtually the same time(American Airlines to Miami, United Airlines to Newark, Delta Airlines to Atlanta, Latam Airlines to JFK and JetBlue Airways to Fort Lauderdale), as an airline employee, non revs understand that any mechanical, oversell or cancellation, that inconvenienced passengers would be moved to other planes, thus a non revenue passenger could not take the chance of being left behind.
I couldn’t relax until the aircraft door was closed, the flight took off for Atlanta, landed in Atlanta, and our feet were on U.S. soil. Another ironic twist for Delta non-revs was that our flight from Atlanta to JFK was absolutely empty, something at the time that we had never seen before. We knew then that this Pandemic and the travel environment were changing how the world would travel very soon and in the future.
Note from the Author: Peru closed all of its air travel to the United States so quickly that travelers who went to the famous area of Machu Picchu and the other regions of Peru were stranded for a general period of 28 days until major U.S. airlines were allowed repatriation flights to transport stranded passengers home. I remember that Delta Air Lines announced later that it had transported more than 28,000 passengers worldwide who had not made it out to their home countries before air transportation to the United States was halted. Of these 28,000 passengers, 5,000 were non-rev travelers.
