Touchdown! International flights return to Ottawa International Airport
Flair Airlines Flight 335 from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with only about 20 passengers on board, landed at the Ottawa International Airport on Sunday afternoon.
Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Oct 31, 2021 • 4 hours ago • 3 minute read
After an absence of almost 600 days, and with only an 18-minute delay, an international flight finally touched down again in Ottawa.
Flair Airlines Flight 335 from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with only about 20 passengers on board, landed at the Ottawa International Airport on Sunday afternoon, about eight hours after the same Boeing 737 left Ottawa for Florida.
The plane’s departure and later arrival were YOW’s first international flights since the federal government on March 18, 2020 — 592 days earlier — limited international flights to four Canadian airports, in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.
Only one other international flight, an evening United flight to Washington, D.C., was scheduled in Ottawa on Sunday.
For at least one arriving passenger, the reopening provided an opportunity to resume a part of her life that the pandemic had interrupted.
“I’m here to see a friend,” said Jupiter, Fla., resident Sherry Muss. “It’s a long story; it’s a reunion. I haven’t seen him since January 2020.
“It’s a romance, hopefully,” she added, “so I’m a little nervous. But it’s good to be back, because I’ve been visiting Canada for the last eight years.”
Andrew and Donna Ritchie, meanwhile, decked out in Miami Dolphins attire, were greeted at the airport by their daughter and granddaughter, who held up a long “Happy Birthday” banner to welcome Donna home.
The Ritchies were returning to Ottawa from a 23-day stay in Florida, where they have a home. According to Andrew, who works with the Ottawa Paramedic Service, it was their first visit to the U.S. since February 2020.
“I was there for the Super Bowl, just before it all happened,” he recalled. “They said there were five cases in Seattle, and we didn’t think anything of it. We got a flight back two days later, and that was the last time I had a sniff of the U.S.”
And although there was extra COVID-related paperwork and testing that had to be done, he said the process to get home wasn’t especially onerous. “It was a lot easier than getting there. I was nervous because I have a job and can’t afford to spend two weeks in quarantine, but we did a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test on Thursday and everything was fine.”
He and his wife also used the ArriveCAN app before leaving the U.S., which he said helped with the smooth arrival.
“But I’m looking forward to the actual borders to open so we can drive across.”
All of the passengers on Sunday’s flight from Fort Lauderdale boarded in the U.S. and so were not subject to the new vaccination travel requirements put in place by the Canadian government on Saturday.
Three passengers who weren’t fully vaccinated were required Sunday to take rapid COVID-19 tests.
Ron Axam, meanwhile, was also on Sunday’s flight, with his daughter Paris and son Devon. The three were returning from a four-day visit with Axam’s daughter, Alex, who lives in Florida.
“We hadn’t seen her in a long time,” said Axam, “and having a direct flight again is fantastic.”
Axam noted that their journey south last week was far more convoluted than Sunday’s return flight home: from Ottawa to Toronto to Syracuse, N.Y., to Fort Lauderdale.
“We were challenged to get on all our connecting flights.”
Still, he said, the return trip required getting COVID tests in Florida, plus the ArriveCAN check-in app.
“There’s a lot more administration than there used to be,” he said. “A lot more paperwork. But it’s a necessary evil these days. And not knowing the process was part of the anxiety, but now that we’ve gone through it once, even though it’s a bit more complex, it helps assuage the worry.”
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