Coronavirus vacation: Australian family recreate 15-hour holiday flight in living room

An Australian family has staged a full recreation of a 15-hour flight from Sydney to Munich in their living room while in lockdown.

Kirsty Russell said her husband, Nathan, a schoolteacher on sabbatical, came up with the idea, complete with security checks, flight attendants and custom-printed boarding passes, after the coronavirus disrupted a family holiday they been planning for five years.

“It started as a joke but it has actually been quite fun,” Russell told Guardian Australia from the second leg of her flight, via Doha. “We thought the kids would not be into it at all. But they have embraced it.”

The family gathered all their luggage on Wednesday then bunkered down for the 15-hour faux flight, landing on Thursday afternoon.

During the trip, Russell’s 16-year-old son screened their bags for contraband material, and her husband wheeled inflight meals through in a trolley from his school’s library. The family were given boarding passes from the fictional airline Lounge Chair Air, telling them to depart from “Gate 1” because “we only have one, actually”.

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Russell said she and her husband had spent their honeymoon in Europe and wanted to show their children the continent. The family planned a multi-week trip, taking in Germany, France, Italy, a Mediterranean cruise and five weeks in the UK.

“We would literally be on this trip right now,” she said. “We thought, well, instead of moping about and being upset our trip wasn’t happening, we would take it it to the nth degree and do it iso-style.

“We had it all set up, we had people coming in to house sit for our dogs. It’s been disappointing, but because we worked so hard with the kids we wanted to give them some kind of experience.”

When they land, the family plan to continue the holiday by recreating as much of the European trip as possible.

“Tonight we are having schnitzel like we’re in Germany, and making pretzels and black forest cake. My husband put together an amazing itinerary – so we still want to use that. Things like the Louvre have virtual tours now.

“My youngest is turning 10 and she wanted to post a picture of her at Disneyland Paris on her birthday, so we’re thinking about how we can do that. We’re gonna do it.”

Russell, who works as a copywriter and consultant for parents whose children have additional needs, said it had brought the family closer. They have passed the time by watching multiple episodes of the animated series DuckTales with their pugs.

“[The dogs] were the one thing I was worried about when going away, so even though I am sad about not going, I’m glad they can come along,” she said. “They always want to get in my chair and sit in my lap.

“It’s no different to what we’d normally be doing but this is the longest we’ve been together in one room for ages. It’s a really nice way to bring everybody together.

“It actually made things special. We made the kids this microwaved food that we thought was disgusting but they thought it was the best thing ever. You might be surprised by what the kids can do.”

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Russell, who livetweeted the entire flight, including a stopover in Doha, said the family had instituted some rules to mimic a flight (such as only having one toilet), but that the children were free to move around and the entire family still kept their phones and internet on.

“There has been a little bit of seat moving around, though,” she said. “It’s funny this flight wasn’t fully booked.

“We had to go through security first off. It beeped when me and my husband were going through and the tables were turned, [our son] had the power.”

Meals offered on Lounge Chair Air include “cheeseburger surprise” and “lasagna a la freezer” which is served with “choice of 1 litre alcoholic beverage”.

“I work from home, so this has been an exercise for me in stopping and taking a mental break,” Russell said. “I’m not checking coronavirus news as much at the moment.

“We’ve all been together for four to five weeks at home – we locked down before the states locked down. It was just an idea to make the most of this.

“We started this [second leg] at 9.30am. We left about half an hour later than we should have. We are two hours in, two hours to go. That’s OK, we’ll have a nap.”