Horse air freight company lobbies Government to ease restrictions for travelling staff
Equine International Airfreight’s Cameron Croucher wants grooms to be classified as airline crew
Since the outbreak of Covid-19 last March, life and business have been challenging for many people, especially Cameron Croucher, the managing director of Equine International Airfreight.
So far he’s endured five rounds of mandatory two-week hotel quarantine, which equates to 70 days of solitary confinement, just to keep his business running and help ensure the steady flow of thoroughbreds that are imported and exported annually could continue unabated.
“It’s been terrible. It’s been pretty tough and it’s got harder and harder to move staff around with the complexities of quarantine.” said Croucher.
Last year, all international airline transport for horses was grounded for three months from April through until June.
Since such travel resumed last July, Croucher has been lobbying the Federal and NSW State Government to ease restrictions on staff, namely grooms, required to travel horses on cargo planes.
“What I have been lobbying for is to have grooms classified as airline crew.
“This has been successful with the airlines and border force but completely ignored by the state health departments.
“Crew on passenger planes are allowed to go home and self isolate for 14 days until their next trip out of the country. That type of crew is allowed to go home but we are not, it makes no sense and it’s very frustrating, as they are on cargo planes with zero passengers.”
Inconsistent classification of staff has added to Croucher’s frustration.
“Returning grooms to Australia has border force classify us as repositioning off-duty crew but NSW Health don’t and classify us as a returning traveller,” he continues.
“They consider us to be a much higher risk than cabin crew but how can we possibly be? It’s totally incorrect and misunderstood by people making the decisions in the health department.”
Correspondence to relevant authorities written by Croucher and Thoroughbred Breeders Australia (TBA) has so far fallen on deaf ears.
“TBA got involved and sent a letter off and I have written to ministers but it all seems to be put in the too-hard basket for a lot of them,” he said.
Croucher is hoping that by having staff vaccinated against Covid-19 that they might not have to continue meeting such strict quarantine protocols.
“For the remainder of 2021, we are in process of having staff vaccinated, which may allow home isolation to be reintroduced for them. I’m not confident but I’m hoping that it will be a step in the right direction and then more people will put their hand up and be prepared to do flights.”
Air travel for horses is in high demand and the past 12 months have been busy for Equine International Airfreight.
In that time the company has won the Macau Jockey Club account servicing all their horse air transport needs and has two charters of horses booked to travel to the Gold Coast for the upcoming Magic Millions National Broodmare, Weanling, and Yearling sales this month.
After a tough year spending much of it in quarantine and undergoing countless tests for the virus, which are far from pleasant, Croucher says he had to learn to become enormously resourceful to survive the rigors.
“The important thing is to have a routine. I got up at the normal time I would for work and exercise for an hour which is good for your mind,” he said.
“I ran three and a half kilometres a day from the window to the door of the hotel room and all up did 500 laps and that filled in some time.
“I ordered in groceries often because food in quarantine is pretty ordinary and you plan what you are going to prepare and cook. That was quite enjoyable to come up with different ideas with limited resources to cook and make food.
“You are not allowed to have a microwave and the only appliances I had were a hotel iron, kettle and hairdryer and I made use of those things for heating and reheating. Doing that was much more appealing than having to eat what was left at the door in a brown paper bag.”
Excessive periods spent in quarantine have also impinged hugely on his family and personal life and he has been forced to miss numerous important milestones such as birthdays and weddings.
So, not surprisingly, Croucher is loath to travel too much over the coming months but he says until such time as restrictions on staff are eased he doesn’t have any choice.
“I will do it if it means a flight can go ahead because I don’t want to let clients down and I need to keep horses moving,” he said.