Have we forgotten how to travel since the COVID-19 pandemic?

With the news over recent days that many of Australia's domestic airports are struggling to deal with the increased number of passengers during the Easter holidays, Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce, laid some of the blame on inexperienced travellers.

"I went through the airport on Wednesday and people forget they need to take out their laptops and they need to take out their aerosols, so that is taking longer to get through the queue."

It made me feel a bit better that I had to throw out my sunscreen and toothpaste at the airport when Alan Joyce admitted that he was also a bit rusty.

"I just came back from a trip from the United States, and I left my passport in my hotel safe," he said.

"One of my colleagues left her passport on a British Airways flight," and "another colleague last week thought that the gate number was her seat number and got them confused." (Or maybe that's just wishful thinking when you're leaving from gate 1A.)

Of course, despite what anyone says, it's clear that passengers taking a bit longer to go through security is not the main cause of the delays at our airports at the moment. Staff shortages is the primary issue, coupled with high demand for the first school holidays in two years without any travel restrictions in Australia. But, putting that aside, there's still the question of whether our post-pandemic brains don't remember what it was like to travel?

Sitting on a domestic flight this week, I watched as a man in the front row of economy, with plenty of leg room, reclined his seat back so far that the poor passenger behind him was squashed for three hours as he tried to work on a laptop (which he may or may not have remembered to take out of his bag at security). Had the guy in front forgotten what it was like to be on a full 737?

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Even checking in, I saw people frantically pulling things out of their suitcases as they tried to get below the luggage weight limit; there was confusion about which documents were needed to fly (which, to be fair, can be complicated for international flights); and a lack of awareness about when flights board meaning that some gates were overly crowded by those who thought it was early, followed by panic by those who left it to the last minute.

Both domestic flights I've taken in the past two weeks were delayed by about an hour, for a variety of reasons that included passengers running late because of long security lines and baggage taking longer than usual to get loaded from connecting flights. The current advice is to get to the airport at least two hours early - especially in Sydney and Melbourne, which are facing the biggest bottlenecks. (The cynical part of me thinks this also plays in the airport's hands because you'll buy more while you wait). But perhaps part of the problem is not just that we've forgotten how to travel domestically, it's that some people remember how it was before the pandemic.

Frequent flyers often treat planes like buses - as long as you get to the airport about 20 minutes before the scheduled departure, you should be able to breeze onto the plane without wasting any time hanging about (assuming you have only carry-on bags). And with flights between Sydney and Melbourne taking off every 15 minutes during peak hour, for example, there's always another option if you have a flexible ticket. Is this behaviour, acting as though everything has gone back to normal, also one of the factors in the current bedlam?

Hopefully things will settle down once the Easter rush has finished and airports and airlines have the chance to boost their staff numbers after the decimation of the pandemic. But it may still be a while until everyone is match-fit for travel. Even once domestic trips become a bit more regular, international travel presents more hurdles. Aside from all the COVID-related paperwork, there are logistics like visas, currency, and foreign languages that we've forgotten how to navigate. After recovering from the embarrassment of having the wrong sized toiletries at security for my first post-pandemic international trip, I discovered the next day that I'd forgotten to bring my credit card that has low international fees. Every time I used the card I had with me, I winced at the unnecessary transaction surcharge I had brought upon myself.

If I can offer any advice, it's not to be too hard on yourself if you feel like you're a bit of a rusty traveller. Just start preparing early and give yourself extra time - not just at the airport, but to check you've got everything you need. And, for those heading overseas, don't forget your (small) toothpaste.