Welshman describes hectic four-hour airport queue as like 'swimming in Covid soup'
Stuart Rideout was forced to queue for 4 hours at Heathrow Airport after a trip to Germany
The 52-year-old filmmaker, who was behind both M&S and Waitrose's former Christmas ad campaigns and 2016's award-winning promo for the Climate Coalition, had been in Germany filming a commercial.
The scenes were something that even pre-coronavirus would bring dread to any traveller, never mind under the current conditions.
However, more than 12 months since the pandemic hit the up, it's what Mr Rideout faced when he arrived at Heathrow airport yesterday evening.
He said: “There were only 20 people on our plane back from Germany, so I thought I'd breeze straight through to the car park.
"Plus there were hardly any planes on the tarmac when we landed.
"But when we finally got to UK border control in Terminal 2, I was like, 'Oh my God'."
For the next four hours, Stuart found himself stuck in a long, snaking queue - "the kind you'd normally see for a ride at Disneyland" - and surrounded by hundreds of others.
"People did start off trying to socially distance, but that soon fell apart,"
"The queue just went back and forth, up and down, and soon there were bodies on all sides.
"It was really humid in there too, but - to be fair - airport staff were handing out bottles of water.
"Even then though there's that uneasy feeling of touching something that's been handed to you by someone else.
"And if this is what it's like while it's still supposed to be essential travel only, God knows what'll happen when everything's opened back up again."
Stuart said that he'd already had a PCR test and filled out the relevant passenger locator forms in order to travel - in addition to which he'd been tested daily whilst working on the project.
"It was really strict over there, but then you return here to stand in a room with hundreds of other people from all over the world and all of you are breathing the same air.
"Okay, I assume they will have also been tested before getting on their respective flights, but there was still one guy that had to get taken out of the queue because he was showing symptoms.
"He was then led away to be isolated."
Now also quarantining at home near Bridgend for 10 days as per government guidelines, Stuart added: "The whole experience felt like swimming in Covid soup.
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https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/welshman-describes-hectic-four-hour-20456609.