Welcome to Australia: Pardon Our Quarantine

S Y D N E Y, Australia, Aug. 17 -- It has been a long flight and the Olympics and Outback await, but the most vigilant quarantine officers in the world stand between you and Australia.

They may stand between you and the airport, in fact, barging right onto the plane, disinfectant spray in hand, spraying you and your belongings with a fine mist of insecticide.

But it is not you they object to. It is the mosquito in the overhead bin, the dirt on your tennis shoe, the salami in your sandwich, the grapevine in your baggage.

“It might not seem like the most welcoming arrival, but it is done for very good reason, and the spray is a World Health [Organization] approved mixture,” said Carson Creagh, spokesman for the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service.

“We’re trying to protect the very things that appeal to people from other countries about Australia: the wildlife, which just doesn’t have any resistance to exotic diseases, and the environment, because there are many plant diseases out there that could devastate Australia.”

Every aircraft arriving in Australia is sprayed with insecticide disinfectant and every passenger questioned about belongings. No animal, food, plant, or soil is allowed.

Creagh said regular flights from Europe and North America are sprayed before passengers board, the better to avoid complaints from indignant passengers who object to flight attendants or quarantine officers spraying them on arrival.

Better Safe Than Sorry

But planes from Hawaii, southeast Asia, tropical South and Central America or tropical Africa are considered high-risk for carrying exotic pests, so the plane is boarded and the cabin sprayed before anyone is allowed out.

Passengers flying from Los Angeles or London should not assume they will be spared. The quarantine service would rather be safe than sorry, so short flights, carriers new to the route, or planes not usually used for Australia may be sprayed too.

Creagh said Australia has been spraying arriving planes since the 1960s and is one of 65 countries that does. But the others, including Brazil, China, France, India and South Africa, rely on insecticide sprayed before passengers board.