“I could not believe it. Two and a half years!” Alison Henry screams as he runs to his eldest son at the airport in New York, USA, with a long hug and tears welling up in his eyes. “How wonderful!”
Since the imprisonment began in March 2020 and travel to the United States from many countries, including the UK, has been severely restricted, the two speak every week.
“But it’s human contact, something you feel when there’s someone in front of you, I miss you so much,” Liam said, his eyes twinkling above a large beard that had leaked from under his mask. Liam has lived in Brooklyn for many years.
With U.S. borders reopening Monday for vaccinated travelers, Liam plans to make the most of his time with his parents and grandmother Patricia, who has not hesitated to fly out of the UK since he was almost 88.
“Every day we looked at the news and waited for the United States to reopen,” Alison recalled. As soon as the official announcement came, tickets were booked.
“An important step”
At Terminal 7 at JFK Airport in New York, on British Airways’ first flight, after the borders were opened, passengers clapped, white, red and blue balloons – the company’s colors – and large yellow taxi biscuits with apples or statues of freedom, the three biggest icons of the city.
Business class passengers were the first to leave. “Fantastic to come back”, “Fantastic”, announce some to the waiting TV cameras.
Then the passengers left impatiently to meet relatives and friends: the grandmother who did not know the grandson; A man waiting with red roses for a friend he has not seen in 11 years; An aunt reunited with her two daughters-in-law.
For this event, British Airways gave the aircraft a valuable “BA1” code, which was attributed to the legendary Concord when the supersonic plane created the route between London and New York.
Sean Doyle, the company’s chief executive, said the trip was “fantastic” as he traveled to New York for the first time in early 2020.
British Airways did not stop flying to the United States, but it was the first aircraft to allow all vaccinated passengers to land on American soil. “According to an important index,” Doyle told AFP.
Atlantic overseas flights are essential to a company’s profitability. “We expect demand to return (to pre-epidemic levels) in 2023 or 2024,” the director explained.
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