MONTREAL—The woman in mask and medical gloves was happily slinging beers and Sauvignon Blancs to the trickle of travellers awaiting flights home to Canada from London’s Heathrow Airport.

The mask hid a brave face as the coronavirus contagion sends her industry into a tailspin.

The bartender confided that she first noticed a drop in travellers at the Air Canada lounge only on Monday of this week. On Tuesday, Europe’s busiest airport for passenger traffic was as quiet and calm as a museum.

On Wednesday, the woman said, the lounge was set to close, its employees to embark on a month-long “vacation.”

This, as Air Canada scales back its services and payroll, as governments call citizens home and the International Air Transportation Association projects a $113-billion (U.S.) loss in passenger revenues for 2020 — a 20-per-cent drop.

In Peru, Morocco, Spain and other countries that have shut their airspace to commercial flights, Ottawa is negotiating exemptions to evacuate stranded citizens. Where commercial flights are still an option, the government is offering loans to cover the inflated ticket prices.

This week, my family of four was among the last-minute travellers returning to Canada to ride out the public-health storm, flying from Moscow to London to Toronto to Montreal. It was not an evacuation, nor did it require financial assistance, but it did offer a glimpse into the different national approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact it has had on the global aviation business.

The kids were thrilled about the prospect of a return to Montreal. But just days after emerging from a two-week quarantine in Moscow following a trip to France, there were groans and protests about having to spend another 14-days hidden away from the world.

We left the Russian capital on Tuesday morning from Sheremetyevo Airport, greeted aboard the plane by an Aeroflot team decked out in a uniform of masks and gloves. The two items of protective equipment were still a rarity in the capital of a massive country with a confirmed COVID-19 caseload — 658 as of Wednesday — that is sharply rising.

Apart from the germs, the Aeroflot crew was sensitive to passengers photographing an empty plane in which each traveller had a row of their own with space to spare.

Our departure came just ahead of a decision to shut down Russian airspace as of March 27 in a bid to contain the spread of the virus. We won’t be allowed to return home until May in even the best-case scenario.

The flight felt at once like one of the last available seats headed for home as well as a potentially grave risk. Planes, with their cramped quarters and stale air, are flying Petri dishes at the best of times. We purchased masks and hand sanitizer to ward off a virus that could be lurking on tray tables and armrests. But we weren’t questioned about our health, subjected to body-temperature scans or inspected for coughs or feverish sweats as we checked our bags and took our seats.

Beside me on the plane, a man with long, pink hair promptly stretched himself out across three empty seats and slept the entire flight as if oblivious to the gloom-and-doom headlines. An older gentleman behind him kept a mask strapped across his nose and mouth and doused his plastic gloves obsessively with disinfectant, prepared for the worst predictions to come true.

Four hours later we landed in London, where British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s initial laissez-faire approach to the outbreak has recently given way to more strenuous social-distancing dictates.

Perhaps that was why the British stiff upper lip was so nakedly on display for us and the few other travellers at Heathrow. Why bother with a mask when a good scrub of the hands is the only certain way to keep the viral intruders at bay? That was the reasoning of a UK border officer with so little to do that he escorted we wayward Canadian travellers toward our gate.

The Air Canada lounge had taken more stringent health-and-safety steps. The buffet service had been limited to croissants, bread, spreads and snacks — all either prepackaged or wrapped individually in plastic to avoid the chances of infection spreading on the handles of utensils or unprotected dishes.

When we boarded the Toronto-bound plane, we were first subject to safety instructions not on fastening seatbelts or inflating life vests, but to a reminder that in this time of emergency washing ones hands well and often could be the critical factor for everyone’s survival.

The transatlantic leg had also scaled back its services to a cold-but-tasty chicken salad and bottled water—restrictions intended not to save the airline money but, according to the aircrew, to minimize contact between personnel and passengers heading home and into a mandatory 14-day quarantine.

That’s where we are now — back in Canada, sealed up for two weeks. It is a familiar land I see from the window, but it feels as if we’ve landed on the moon compared to where we’ve been.

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It’s all quite strange: the gaping holes between customers in lineups; the airport restaurants hesitant to take on additional eaters; or the property rental manager welcoming us to our temporary home from halfway down the stairs.

The few people we’ve encountered seem to get nervous when you tread too closely, when you don’t follow the rules as they’ve been set out — to the letter.

It’s strange and, also, oddly reassuring. As if our natural Canadian standoffishness might be the thing that brings us together to get through these difficult, dangerous times.

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