My Experience Flying Back into France May 29 2021 (remember I am a resident)

RETURN TO FRANCE:

On Friday, May 28, i had the return routing: TUL-ATL-CDG, again on Delta.

In order to enter France, you have to have a negative PCR test (and it MUST be PCR, they won’t accept an antigen test) that is newer than 72 hours when you board your first flight. I had done some googling before I ever left France to make sure this would be possible in Tulsa, also testing how far ahead i would need to make an appointment in order to get it for the date I needed.

The best option I found for my needs in Tulsa was CVS. There were several locations, so I picked a convenient one and kept checking as the days rolled by to see how open the appointments were. It was clear that getting an appointment was EASY (there were LOTS of appointments available — at the current time). I made an appointment for Wednesday morning, May 26, as the CVS site that it was currently taking 1-2 days to get results back. CVS offered me an option to self-pay since my test was for my own personal reason (i.e. nobody was MAKING me travel back to France), and it cost $139. I signed up online and followed the instructions and went to the CVS Wednesday morning to get my kit, do my swab, and submit the swab for testing. It went easily enough, and the swab wasn’t as deep as the one i had in Paris (in fact I did my own swab in the car with the NP guiding me from inside the drive-through window).

I had my results by 10:30 the next morning — so I got my result in 24 hours. I printed off two copies of the results and added them to my other documentation for entering France, which is available here:

https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/Actualites/L-actu-du-Ministere/Certificate-of-international-travel

Currently, you have to be a French citizen or resident or one of a few other categories listed on that certificate. You also have to fill out an attestation pledging that you’re willing to take an additional antigenic test upon arrival and to self-isolate for 7 days. (Please note that there are different rules depending on which country you’re entering France from. For example, people arriving from Turkey, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, India, etc. Have to agree to a STRICT 10-day quarantine which will be followed up on, they will be re-tested at the airport upon arrival, etc.)

So on Friday i went to the Tulsa airport with my documents. (As always, I was NOT able to check in on line, because Delta needs to see my residence card — which they won’t give me a chance to submit online. Annoying, but so far hasn’t caused a problem.). Anyway, i got to Tulsa and the check-in agent asked me for my negative test and other paperwork. It was fine, so they checked me in. (Keep in mind, I was at the airport for check-in at about 2 pm for my 3:30 flight, so my test is now some 51 and 1/2 hours old, still well within the 72-hour requirement).

I flew Tulsa to Atlanta and went to the international terminal in ATL to make my connection. Delta had a sign up (and kept announcing verbally) that no matter WHERE you came from originally, you HAD to check back in at the desk with them.

They had a sign as you stood in line to tell you that you had to have ready to present to them your negative Covid test, your passport, your boarding pass, your visa or residence card, and your QR code (I forgot to ask what they meant by QR code, I didn’t have any QR code). The agent there checked my paperwork and highlighted some information on my boarding pass in green.

When it came time to board, a contract person did a forehead temperature check of each passenger, and someone else checked that you had the green highlight on your boarding pass. This is obviously Delta double and triple checking that you have the requirement documentation so that France won’t reject you and they (Delta) won’t get stuck shipping you back to the U.S. at their expense.

The flight was pretty full — not 100%, some of the middle seats were empty in the center section (including my row, yay), but definitely not one of these flights with 20 people as some people have talked about.

While on board, the flight attendants passed out a paper (obviously generated by the French government, although it did not have any French government logo on it anywhere) in English and French to fill out with our information — name and address, phone and email, and what flight we were on and WHAT SEAT NUMBER we were in — obviously to facilitate tracing later on should there turn out to be a need. The flight attendants collected the papers before we landed.

When we landed, they asked us to please not get up until the row in front of us. I noted that we parked at the gate at 9:53 and I got up out of my seat at 10:07 (I was in row 24, for what it’s worth).

We deplaned and walked for a while and took the shuttle over to the immigration point. When we were arriving at the immigration line, I thought to myself that the line looked a bit long — but I wasn’t sure if it actually was that long, because, in an effort to maintain social distancing, the line was not snaked back on itself with all the elastabands and stanchions . . . Rather, it was one looong line. Well, here, we go, we made it to the end of the line, and we would see what it held.

I heard one of the “line minders” just a few feet ahead of me ask one of my fellow arriving ATL passengers “Are you all still from the Istanbul flight” and when the person said no, we’re arriving from the U.S., the line minder said “Oh I’m glad I asked” and then said we didn’t have to wait behind these people who had arrived from Istanbul — and directed us up to an EXTREMELY short line — basically that whole line was people from “vols cibles” — or “target flights” from countries for whom France has established those more restrictive entry measures. So I arrived at the back of that immigration at 10:19 but when he let us bypass (not really bypass, he sent us up a parallel lane) and go up to the front, I was at the top part of the line two minutes later (in between, i had showed another “line minder” my negative Covid test — I was glad I had highlighted my name, DOB, and the time that the PCR test was taken, so she could find that information more easily and match my name with my passport).

I was through immigration in just a couple of minutes after that and went to wait for my baggage.

So really, all in all, it went very smoothly. It was interesting to me how it seemed that the immigration/emigration officials in each country relied on their airlines and their contract security to ensure that passengers had the correct negative test documentation and other paperwork — the actual border police or CBP didn’t really look at those documents themselves!!! (Oh I forgot to mention, when we deplaned in Atlanta when I was GOING to the States, they told us that CDC personnel would be there to check our tests — but when we got to the end of the jetway, CDC seemed to be targeting only certain people — I asked one CDC woman if I needed to stop, and she waved me through. I am not sure if they had been alerted before hand about people they needed to check).

So again my experience is not yet that of an American tourist coming to France, as that hasn’t been authorized yet, but I imagine the hoops to jump when that does happen (relatively soon, probably), will be much the same. To be honest, I made it from plane seat to exiting CDG in one hour, which is the time i normally estimate that it will take — that surprised me, as I thought it would be much slower.

And the last point — I had an easy time finding a PCR test within my timeframe and made it through immigration easily — but I have seen a lot of articles from the UK and Europe (and heck even the U.S.) talking about the pressure that will happen to the system once the “floodgates” are re-opened - i.e. as more and more travelers start traveling again, and with the airports’ needs to maintain social distancing, and the fact that processing each passenger and ENSURING that they have their correct documentation simply takes more time than a normal check-in or immigration, that things may bog down. That does NOT sound like fun, so just keep in mind that that may be the case whenever travel starts back up again. Maybe airports/governments/airlines will bring on sufficient additional trained personnel to handle all this, but it may be more painful than usual.

Just to re-emphasize: so far, Europe (and for that matter, the U.S.) currently doesn’t give a fig about vaccination status — it has nothing to do with whether you are allowed to enter.

My speculation is that soon it will be one of the factors that will allow you to enter, and that other choices will be to provide a negative PCR test of less than 72 hours (or dang, 24, if you’re operating under the strict Dutch rules, as I understand) or provide documented proof of recent recovery from Covid-19.

Once they actually establish that, then there is the additional conundrum of how U.S. and European vaccination confirmations will “speak” to each other. European countries and the EU have been testing and re-testing these health passes, which let their individual country systems speak to each other via QR code that tells whether you are vaccinated/have a clean test/recovered from Covid and have documentation. The U.S. is behind in this regard, especially since even among ourselves, we don’t have a unified electronic database to be checked — each state has handled vaccination record-keeping differently (since each state handled its own vaccination program!), although many have fed into the CDC’s VAMS database. So that is going to be a really important technical detail that will need to be worked out for practical reasons.

Hoping that everyone has a nice Memorial Day weekend as we remember those who have passed on. I was able to go to my hometown graveyard on Friday on our way to the airport and lay flowers on my grandparents’ graves with my parents and brother, which meant a lot after this weird long time we have been through. Being able to do that together in person felt really wonderful.

Thanks for the report Kim. I'm glad you got to see your parents.
I will be traveling to the US and then returning to the Netherlands at the end of June. I hope I have all the necessary testing arrangements made in order to return. The Netherland's PCR test requirement for returning is 72 hours before ARRIVAL in the NL. Making it extra special fun.
My hope is that all international airport will soon have testing facilities and we won't have to rely on the whims of CVS or Walgreen's.

Kim, what an excellent, well-detailed report. Thank you for taking the time to post this, it is much appreciated!

Kim, my thanks as well for the details. It’s good to know people’s experiences.

And.... I am so very happy you got to see your Mom and Dad and likely other family! I am sure your visit meant so much to them!

Thank you Kim.......Great report and so glad you were able to see family.......

Kim glad that you were able to see your parents and get back to France without problems. It's so helpful when the system actually works the way it's supposed to.

Hi Kim, thanks so much for this detailed report. Happy you had a nice visit and safe return!

Thanks for a great and comprehensive report Kim

Thank you Kim for walking us along with you through this experience. I think I’m most worried about timing of tests and delays that would derail things.

It sounds like you had a wonderful visit that was a welcome breath of family time for all. Good to know you are back in Paris with your family too.

Kim, thanks for the great report. I'm delighted that you got to see your parents; I know the separation has been hard on all of you.

However ..... I thought the deal was you'd let us know the next time you were going to be in town! We'll let it go this time, but next time, we get a "heads up." We'd love to see you again, and goodness knows we have plenty to talk about!

Thanks, Kim for the detailed report. I will be trying to see my family in the UK this July. Leaving from Springfield, Missouri via Atlanta to London Heathrow on Delta. I would imagine I will be jumping through some of the same hoops. I am hopeful that the UK will change the 10-day quarantine for vaccinated travelers next month. That may be a deal-breaker for me. It was interesting to read the details of going through Atlanta.

Margaret

Interesting read Kim, thank you! Glad you got to see your folks.
My DH and I signed up for the RS tour Paris & The Heart Of France tour for next April, the one we had to cancel last year. Hopefully, we can make plans to meet up like we had planned from our canceled trip!

Thanks for such detail, Kim.
And I'm so glad that you were able to visit family after such a long time.

Here are a few of the articles talking about possible difficulties in EU/UK airports once broader tourism resumes

https://www.politico.eu/article/airports-travels-restart-coronavirus-reopenings/

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/18/britons-face-up-to-four-hour-passport-queues-this-summer-warns-border-force-worker?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.lci.fr/societe/covid-19-le-patron-des-aeroports-parisiens-redoute-une-apocalypse-de-temps-d-attente-cet-ete-2186406.html

And here is a report from a Forum member who flew from the U.S. to Greece via Heathrow May 30-31.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/greece/our-experience-getting-to-greece

Thanks for excellent post. It said, "I had my results by 10:30 the next morning — so I got my result in 24 hours. I printed off two copies of the results and added them to my other documentation for entering France, which is available here: https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/Actualites/L-actu-du-Ministere/Certificate-of-international-travel."

Great but I looked at that documentation, and it was quite a bit more than we were asked to present on previous visits to France. I know we'll need a certificate of vaccination, a negative PCR test, and passport since Covid now exists. But from that link, it now seems a Lot more. We would need proof of health insurance, proof of lodging, proof financial means, and a return ticket. Is that the case now? Was there a change?

Rick's Europe Through the Back Door doesn't mention any of those things being required. Obviously the Covid documentation is supersedes that. But can anyone clarify on these other additional items?

Wilson, at the time I was traveling last weekend (and for that matter, for more than a year), France was *only * admitting foreigners who have resident status or certain special visas. That won't be the case as of June 9.

The government hasn’t yet updated its page where you pick up the attestations, because the restrictions haven’t yet changed — that happens on Wednesday.

That was interesting and helpful. Thanks, Kim.

Terrific insights, Kim, thank you for taking the time. I know that "more than a year" hug that you refer to - so glad you were able to finally have it!

Thanks for this! My husband is visiting his parents soon (last in-person was April 2019). His will be via Schiphol and Atlanta. He will be fully vaccinated but is expecting to still need a PCR test on each end. It looks like Schiphol just dropped that requirement for those just transiting, but that may change again. We have been doing the same--looking up PCR options near his family (and here) to make sure we don't miss out on getting a timely appointment. He is currently expecting to travel with his PCR, antigen, and vaccination records as well as his normal residency permit and passport. And yes, he has the same check in issue! You would think the airlines would learn that not all US citizens live in the US!

We are constantly checking the requirements for entry into the US, into Germany, and transit points, and we have identified the most feasible options for PCR tests locally (there is a HUGE price range depending on where you get it done and how fast you want it) and are monitoring how appointments are filling up to make sure we don't miss the chance to get one. Antigen tests are no problem (locally free and easily available).

We have done the same for return flights.

We hope we don't need the PCRs, especially since he will be fully vaccinated, but we are ready if he does!

I am not yet vaccinated, so I can't see my family yet. Soon!!