Fight and flight in time of crisis BY LLOYD GORMAN Jennie Beardsley has been in the travel business longer than even she realises. With 36 years experience under her belt as a travel agent, the British Travel boss has weathered previous crises such as SARS and even 9/11 but like the rest of us she has never been through a full blown pandemic. What seemed like a problem in China quickly spread around the world and caught many travellers and tourists everywhere - including here in Australia - completely unawares. All of a sudden a lot of people wanted and needed to get onto an airplane. “One day everything was normal and the next day everything had changed,” she said. Suddenly she was working from 6am until 1am seven days a week. “There were a lot of people who needed to travel, to get out of the country, people who were here on holidays and who had their flights cancelled by other airlines,” she said. “We had so many tourists who were here on holiday visas and I and my team were working around the clock to get them out. We also had a lot of people who had already planned to go back to Ireland and the UK and they need to get back. That was the easy bit before people needed permission to fly, then it started getting harder. There was a lot of work behind the scenes with Border Force. It wasn’t just a case of booking them a flight, getting them permission to fly was very time consuming. I became an immigration lawyer as well as everything else in the last few weeks. But basically we managed to get all our passengers out who needed to travel.”
While it is harder to get away, there are compassionate grounds such as a bereavement of a family member or for someone who has already sold their home in Australia with the intention of leaving Australia - but the exemptions are not easy to get. Jennie estimates there are about 10,000 Irish tourists in Australia and 30,000 Brits. Many of them are visiting family and loved ones and can stay with them, but staying longer than they expected raises visa issues which they need to be aware of and contact the authorities. Jennie has helped many Irish folk to get back to Ireland in recent weeks but she has been doing just that for many years. She has been in Australia for 28 years and had her first office in Subiaco, directly across the road from the Irish Club. “I’ve had a long relationship with the Irish community, going back to when St. Patrick’s Day was held down in Fremantle.” She has helped the Perth Rose of Tralee committee to organise flights for returning Roses and other groups, and travel vouchers and flights back to Ireland sponsored by British Travel often pop up as prizes for Irish fund raising efforts. There is another very important way she helps Irish people when they need it most. She has helped coordinate the repatriation of many bodies back to Ireland. Having lost her 23 year old stepson Jack in an accident in London a few years ago and trying to figure out what arrangements needed to be made or what to do, Jennie says she has a very personal appreciation and respect for what it means. While many sectors - including airlines - have been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis, Jennie and her colleagues have remained busy. “We are still doing bookings, as well as Perth we do the East coast, so we are still assiting people from Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and even Darwin to get back to Europe for family bereavements and the like.” Working from home the British Travel crew are also helping people to reschedule holidays - including crusie ship get-aways for next year - and make other arrangements. Anyone who wanted to plan a trip but who couldn’t afford to pay the cost upfront can take advantage of a payment plan which allows the overall cost to be spread out. Even now, if you do need to get back to Ireland Jennie said there are still four flights a day out Perth - compared with seven normally that can get you there or daily services from Melbourne and Sydney. THE IRISH SCENE | 40
