We were in Wellington for the weekend to launch my wife’s brilliant new exhibition ‘History Repeats’ at the Petone Settlers' Museum.
This involved getting up at 3 am on Saturday morning to take an Air New Zealand flight down to the capital, then attending a late morning event, then driving back into the CBD to check into our hotel and do a bit of bookshopping (for me) and gallery-hopping (for her).
Would to God we'd had the sense to book a late afternoon flight back home instead of staying on overnight! And would to God, too, that I'd resisted the temptation to ‘make the most’ of our trip away by making the flight home a late afternoon one.
Saturday was an unexpectedly bright sunny day. On Sunday, however, the threatened bad weather began to close in. It was raining when we woke up, and so it continued, with occasional gaps in the cloudbursts.
Eventually we thought we’d call it a day and head into the airport to wait there instead of trooping grimly around the city. We'd had a big breakfast at the hotel with my brother-in-law and his partner, so there didn't seem much need to follow it up with anything similarly substantial for lunch.
My sister-in-law suggested that we try to change our flight to an earlier one. ‘You never know,’ she said, ‘They may be quite pleased to have some seats to sell on the later one.’
I felt a bit sceptical about this, but decided to give it a try.
Rightly, as it turned out. We arrived at the airport in time for the 1.30 pm flight to Auckland, but soon discovered that it would cost us $360 – more than the price of our entire journey to date – to swap our seats to the earlier one. Why? Because they were ‘non-baggage’ seats, and that was the full price of an upgrade. In essence, then, Air NZ seemed keener to fly with empty seats than to sell them at anything resembling a reasonable price.
We decided to give it a miss. In retrospect, this was a bad mistake, but then how were we to know? If it had been only a couple of hundred, I might well have gone for it – but the quote was so grotesque it really defied belief!
And so the afternoon wore on. From time to time announcements came over the airport loudspeaker – why are those things calibrated to be almost inaudible? and why do they invariably choose mumbling imbeciles to read out the messages? – about closing the runway because of thunderstorms, but flights still seemed to be taking off on a regular basis, albeit with a few delays.
Eventually we went through customs into the departure lounge, and now Air NZ began to show its true colours. Boarding took place with reasonable speed, but then there was the usual delay as they looked for one errant passenger (‘Is [name] on board? If so, could you make yourself known to cabin staff?’). I was unusually anxious to get going because of the obviously deteriorating weather, so every new pause in the process put me even more on edge.
So long did all this take that we lost our place in the queue to take off, and the captain said we'd have to wait for another plane to land before we taxied out onto the runway, ‘because we can't move out against this wind.’ That last detail sounded unusually ominous, even by the standards of this day of mischances.
The next thing that happened was considerably more bizarre, though. We'd actually inched out onto the tarmac with the speed of a dying snail when the cabin steward announced that two connecting flights from Auckland to New Plymouth had both been cancelled thanks to the weather, so everyone booked on them would have to disembark – along with all their luggage.
This, he confidently claimed, would take ‘fifteen to twenty minutes’ to effect. Yeah, right.
Back we trundled to the airbridge, and a quarter or so of the passengers duly deplaned. By now the wind was howling outside and the rain beating down. Every minute of delay made the weather worse. It had been obvious to me for some time that this plane was going nowhere, but the airline was not going to admit it for quite some time yet.
Off we went again, creaking and groaning out into the fairway. ‘You're not going to believe this, folks. I don't remember encountering this in 37 years of flying. One of the cockpit lights doesn't seem to be responding. We'll have to go back to pick up a technician. Apologies for the delay.’
So back to the airbridge we went. For a second time the cabin doors were unlocked, and eventually the technician joined us. Further delays followed. They did amuse us by lowering the screens to display their Air NZ quiz, however. They even issued us with cups of water and packets of chips: a bounteous display of generosity prophetic of things to come.
After twenty minutes or so, it became clear that this wounded bird was going nowhere. As we all disembarked, the captain repeated his comments about how he'd never encountered so many problems all in one go. ‘And actually, even if there weren't issues with the equipment, I doubt that I'd feel able to take off with the weather as it is at present.’
He seemed to feel that this might be reassuring to us. Basically, his remarks made clear that it was his own chagrin at such a succession of mischances which was paramount – the difficulties of a hundred or so passengers, many with urgent connecting flights awaiting them in Auckland, came a distant second.
‘Go to the “mumble-mumble” desk in the airport,’ they told us as we disembarked. ‘Our staff will assist you.’ Like hell they will. When I close my eyes, I can still see that long snaking line of passengers sprawling right around the check-in lounge. In front of them was a single desk with one employee talking to each passenger in turn at excruciating length.
Contradictory announcements kept on booming out from the speakers. First the passengers with connecting international flights were told to go down to the baggage claim area and collect all their luggage before heading up to the lounge to queue up at the transfer desk – the same one, with the same languid staff, who'd dealt with our request to transfer flights with such insouciance earlier that day. They looked a bit more agitated now, three of four of them falling over each other to process passengers on the sole connecting flight to Auckland left that evening!
Then the connecting passengers were told to leave their luggage on the carousels, from which it would be automatically shifted to their new flight. Now, though, they should come up and have their passports and travel documents ready for inspection. By this stage, however, text messages were beginning to come up from the baggage claim area which revealed that no luggage had yet emerged from the hold, and that everyone was still futilely waiting there.
As for the rest of us, as we stood in our long snaking crocodile of a line in front of that single, surly woman in uniform, at this point an announcement came that those of us with the Air NZ app would be directly booked onto a new flight – a few lucky ones (selected how, I wonder?) onto that evening's flight, but most of us onto one at 6 am the next morning.
The lucky ones with the app (alas, not us) began to flake off from the line and disappear in quest of accommodation. The rest of us stood there as one old lady at the head of the line spent ten minutes or so scrolling through her phone for (imaginary?) booking texts and arguing vociferously with the woman at the desk.
By now we'd struck up an acquaintance with a nice woman and her daughter standing in line behind us. The daughter was starting a new job on Sunday, and was understandably anxious to get back to Auckland that night. I, too, was feeling less than philosophical about this delay. We'd arranged for my mother to feed our cat while we were away, but weren't sure whether we could really trust her to remember to do it.
Also, I'd left my car in a pre-booked section of one of the airport parking buildings. I'd left a margin of several hours to allow for the usual delays, but hadn't thought to allow for a whole extra day of parking – the flight from Wellington to Auckland usually takes three quarters of an hour. It seemed a bit much to turn that time into a couple of extra days, but that's the kind of gumption that distinguishes our national carrier …
What happens when you go over time in one of those reserved spots? That was my question, but there was, of course, no answer available. We rang the ‘dedicated phoneline,’ but there was – again predictably – no reply, even though we were still well within their stated operating hours.
Once before this had happened to me, in Germany, when I missed a connecting flight because of ice on the wings of the plane transporting me there from Scotland. But that was with Lufthansa. They comped me a hotel room, and bumped me up to first class on my new flight the next day. They weren't particularly gracious about it, but it didn't seem to be anything they hadn't handled before.
Air NZ, by contrast, reacted to this interruption to their schedule with maximum disorder and confusion. The mere fact of having one person dealing with a hundred-odd passengers showed their lack of preparation. And, when we finally got to the head of the line, it was plain that rebooking onto next morning's flight was the maximum they would do for us.
They had zero interest in discussing what we could do to find overnight accommodation – not even a list of nearby hotels. Nor were they prepared to offer an opinion on whether or not my car was likely to be towed or clamped at the other end. We were just tiresome losers, to be dismissed as quickly as possible. Our travel insurance entitled us to only $250 in total, she barked at us as we turned away. Without that, even finding a corner of the airport to doss in would have been next to impossible.
Left entirely to our own devices, we went up the escalator to the airport hotel. Every spare room there had been snapped up while we stood in line, of course, but as we turned away disconsolately, we ran into our two friends from the queue. They too had been denied a room, as had another woman they were with, who was in the process of ringing to find rooms in nearby hotel.
‘Oh, do you need a room, too?’ our kind friend asked. ‘Yes,’ we chorused. ‘Add them to the list,’ she said to the other woman, who had managed to connect to some kind of hotel desk-wallah. And so it went. We were duly booked into the hotel, by these new chance acquaintances, who showed us so much more concern and compassion than any of the Air NZ staff.
Not only that, but it turned out that there was a hotel shuttle we could take from downstairs. By now we'd been joined by an Irish couple, in New Zealand on their honeymoon, who – it turned out – had not only been booked into the same hotel from the Air NZ desk we'd just been standing at ourselves, but had been offered the price of a meal at the same time!
Talk about a double standard! The face of that woman when I asked her what we were to do, caught overnight in a strange city through no fault of our own, would have curdled milk. Clearly orders had been issued to placate foreign visitors, though, so our new companions had had quite a different experience.
Never mind that the meal was dreadful, and the hotel we ended up at more like an old people's home than the luxury resort one might have expected from the prices they charged, it's the principle of the thing.
To put it simply, when put to the test, Air NZ choked. They showed no powers of organisation, no ability to improvise, and no kindness. They couldn't have been less efficient if they'd tried. Lufthansa, though admittedly equally brusque and unsmiling, beat them in every way.
My hopes of getting away next morning with this team of cowboys at the helm were, I admit, fairly muted. I had, in fact, hatched a scheme of renting a car after the inevitable cancellation of our new flight, and driving us all the way home myself!
My faith in Air NZ had pretty much reached rock-bottom by this stage. The crowning touch, I thought, was the completely blank sign above the desk we'd been directed to by the crew after the cancellation of our flight the night before.
So anxious were they for us to receive prompt service from their ground forces that they gave us no directions where to find this desk, and even made sure it wasn't marked or signposted in any way. All in all, I doubted their competence to transport anyone from point A to point B.
Our morning flight did leave, though, and only a little bit late. Which was just as well, as yet another thunderstorm was breaking out around us as we taxied out onto the runway. If we'd had Captain Klutz from the night before at the helm of this new aircraft, I'm sure he would have contrived to give up on this take-off, too. But our new pilot proved to be of sterner stuff, and gunned us up through the dark clouds and buffeting cross-winds.
Nor was our landing at the other end any easier. The long descent into Auckland was marked with flashes of lightning and driving rain. Having heard from another set of chance-met friends in the departure lounge at Auckland on Saturday morning of their own experience of flying all the way to Wellington only to be diverted back to Auckland to spend the night huddled in a corner of the airport, I was dreading being diverted to Kirikiriroa – or Kamchatka, for that matter. Our intrepid pilot did manage to land, though, and so we disembarked to a new sea of troubles.
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Just what do I mean you to conclude from all this? That I'm a natural hysteric, inclined to panic at the smallest problem? Well, yes, I can see that would be a natural reaction to this comedy of errors. I hadn't flown since the beginning of the pandemic, and I found the whole experience unexpectedly stressful.
Certainly my wife must have found me quite a pain at certain moments during our trip, which was, after all, meant solely as a celebration of her own achievement at curating an entire exhibition at long distance, with only a couple of visits possible throughout the whole planning period!
Nor does Air NZ control the weather. The mass of thunderstorms which blanketed the country that weekend was (we're told) very unusual, and bound to be disruptive to travel – especially in a city such as Wellington, with its high hills and notoriously windy climate.
Nor should anyone second-guess their decision to ground a flight over a flashing light in the cockpit. It was, probably, nothing serious. But it's infinitely better to find that out on the ground than to learn the contrary in the air over Mt Taranaki!
That's pretty much where the excuses end, though. As we commiserated with our newfound friends in the departure lounge at 5.30 am next morning, our mutual conclusion was that nothing in the airline’s response to these events had been sensible or consistent.
I recall, as we pulled away in the hotel courtesy coach that rainy evening, catching a glimpse of a young Canadian who'd been trying desperately to get onto the next flight to Auckland to catch his connection to Vancouver, and had been waving people in front of him in the queue as he attempted to find out what could be done about his luggage. He was standing all alone in the pick-up zone. He, at least, had not achieved lift-off, despite all the faffing about of the Air NZ staff. His strained white face said it all.
One last thing. As I lay in my bed in the cramped, dusty little room they’d stuffed us into at the Lyall Bay hotel, I’m certain I heard someone calling my name outside the door.
The lights were all on in the corridor, as is usual in such places, but when I poked my head out there was nothing to see.
If that hotel reminded me of anything, it was the old psychiatric hospital at Kingseat in Auckland (now home to the haunted house experience Spookers [1]).
It wasn’t the zombies and chainsaw-wielding psychopaths who frightened me most, it was the long strange drive to get there – further and further away from the highway, from any other signs of habitation, in the oncoming twilight, which is the only time the show can open.
Above all, it was the rows of empty, abandoned buildings we had to nose through to reach that one glimmer of light in the darkness.
Notes:
[1] For further details on Spookers, you can visit https://spookers.co.nz/.
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