INTERESTING WELCOME TO CAIRNS

The briefing informed and prepared us for the arrival in Cairns, their process for customs/immigration and quarantine.

We are excited, ready and happy!

Cairns airport officials parked us at the end of taxiway G. From there we were welcomed by quite the crowd – Hawker Pacific handler, customs officials, quarantine officials, and more.

I have seen quarantine officials and their procedures in other countries and all seems to be as usual. We were not allowed to exit the airplane before decontaminating the cabin and outside compartments for any foreign insects. We were given a bottle of spray that we needed to release for 10 seconds within the entire length of the aircraft and sit inside for 3 minutes, door closed, while it takes affect. Once complete, the quarantine officials came back to the aircraft and gave us permission to exit the plane.

We were required to remove everything from the aircraft with the exception of rafts, life vests, aircraft supplies/tools, etc. When packing for a Journey of this length, we all have quite the “stuff” – bags and bags were unloaded from each airplane.

We were treated to all the services before transferring to the international arrivals hall to have our passports processed. From there, the companions were going to head to the hotel and get settled while the pilots returned to the aircraft to taxi the planes to our assigned parking spots.

Upon entering the terminal, we were walked through the immigration area for clearance. Anais and I were taken to an interrogation room for questions concerning our business model and our intentions in Australia. The immigration officers had been aware of our original arrival, in 4 days, and our destinations in Australia, however, our change of plans threw them off with only 4 hours of notice. They had never seen 6 airplanes traveling together with the same program.

We were told that our group required temporary import of the aircrafts and were subject to a 10% GST tax if the airplane remained in Australia passed our intended exit date. Quite the surprising and unsettling request.

Our handler had never seen or heard of such a thing. We were free to depart for the hotel but the aircrafts were essentially impounded. We were not allowed to reload the airplanes or access them after the taxi to our assigned parking spots. Customs officials sealed the airplanes.