First Paula Zimmerman came across the news of a new, alarming version of the coronavirus as he lazily flipped his phone in the departure lounge at Cape Town International Airport on November 25. “There was no name and we didn’t know anything about it being more or less contagious,” she recalled. Zimmerman turned to her husband and said the couple was lucky enough to board their flight from South Africa to the Netherlands, which was scheduled to land at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport the next morning, November 26. The flight went smoothly, and as night passed, Zimmerman and her companions prepared for the weekend in the Netherlands. KLM flight KL598 from Cape Town to Amsterdam arrived at 10:35 a.m. on November 26, 20 minutes ahead of schedule.
But instead of taxiing to its normal gate, the plane took a different route. “They took us to a remote part of the airport,” said Paul Rebel, a businessman who was also on a flight to the Netherlands for his mother’s funeral. The pilot’s voice cracked on the plane’s speaker: No one could get off the plane because the Dutch government imposed a travel ban on South Africa. The ban was due to take effect at noon that day – in just under 90 minutes. Flight KL598 was stuck in a strange variant.
“I think we were deliberately kept on the plane until 12 o’clock, after which we were released at the airport,” Rebel said. A KLM spokesman said the airline had no choice but to follow the rules set by the Dutch government and GGD, the Dutch health service. “Passengers were not allowed to disembark before permission from the Dutch government and GGD,” the spokesman said. “The only thing we could do was comply and keep the passengers.
Flight KL598 and another, flight KL592 from Johannesburg to Schiphol, flew over an invisible wall. As Zimmermann, Rebel and their companions flew north to the Netherlands, South African health authorities warned the world of a potentially dangerous new option – the one we now know as Omicron. And in response, much of the world closed its borders – inadvertently leaving 624 people stranded on the tarmac. While flying over Europe, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, had proposed withdrawal “Emergency brake to stop air travel” from South Africa entering Europe. Then the two planes landed.
There may be a name now, but there are still so many things we don’t know about Omicron. However, much of the world, terrified of the potential of a more portable vaccine-avoiding option, quickly tried to stop it from spreading. The European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States have imposed travel bans on several South African countries. Israel and Japan have closed their borders to all foreigners. Governments and scientists are still waiting to see what Omicron does to our planet and our population.
“At first I was a little shocked because I thought it had something to do with terrorism,” Zimmerman said. “The captain explained that this is a new option and that the government does not want us to enter the country. Then I thought, Well, you know, it’s gonna be okay. I guess. ‘ They said it would take about half an hour and we would probably go down and be tested.