Wannes Elias, a cargo charter manager at Chapman Freeborn, was intensively building plans of proposing to his nurse girlfriend. It had to be a beautiful and soul-touching moment during a romantic holiday in the middle of 2020. The pandemic stopped the global aviation industry almost overnight without leaving any chance to Wannes for a heartwarming moment abroad. However, the aviation professional found a unique solution.

2020 started as a normal year, little did we know all was about to change and this would affect everyone around the globe. From a business perspective, things got crazy, fast. Lots of long hours, as everyone did in the group, lots of planning, preparations, quotations and the flights themselves! As my fiancée is a nurse, I had to start working from home as she was a high-risk person and so was I. She treated COVID19-infected patients on a daily basis. Things got better in the summer regarding lockdowns and the number of people that we were allowed to see increased, so good times. Little did we know, a couple of months later things would change for the worse. Immediate lockdown and working from home again for the last 3 months. 

Luckily, you get adrenaline and high hopes when you book flights, nailing the business is one of the things I absolutely adore. To see the continued support from our group was a blessing, hats off to all of my colleagues! After working 5 months from home, I got the hang of it and basically what you need is a clear day-to-day routine, daily exercise, and a good spirit. The amount of Zoom calls are unheard of but good to talk to colleagues on a daily basis.

At the end of 2019, I started to make plans to ask my girlfriend to marry me. The plan was to ask her on our holiday in the middle of the year, however, we were not allowed to travel so I rigged a setting up in our woods at home! What turned out to be a horrible beginning of the year, ended in a magical atmosphere as I finally proposed in October and she said yes!