'There was a time I would have jumped at the offer. Now, the spirit is willing but...'
We always thought we would change our lifestyle when something more exciting arose. Little did we know that airplane travel is providing more excitement than the fabulous mountains, scenery and views of the world. To be fair, we have enjoyed a relatively quiet and incident free year of overseas travel. However, this calm period just ended, unfortunately. While air travel does not seem a great topic for a story, this one isn’t half-bad especially should one not be intimately involved...(continued at end)
From a highpoint, looking down lake. The locals tell us they are going through a very dry spell. Observing the
trees and water, we thought that was 'obvious'.
Slowing the fall of the water at Korokoro Falls.
The New Zealanders are 'big swingers'...they love these type of bridges.
Last light.
Getting back to lake level as we search for a way out of the rainforest.
Swan Lake at dawn.
Something different on the other side of the lake.
Peering over the edge in high winds.
The falls 'square-on' from below.
We arrived at San Diego International Airport, a rather quiet field compared with the hubs within the rest of the country. Because we had to vacate our hotel well before flight-departure time, we decided to reach the terminal early and learn something about airport design such as how many coffee outlets one can squeeze into a concourse. The woman at the ticket counter was most helpful; she put us on a flight two hours earlier than our scheduled one. Things were going well especially the fact that we were allotted two large bags each for the hold. The ‘Friendly Skies’ airline was indeed friendly and accommodating. By the time we arrived at the gate for departure to San Francisco en route to Auckland, the flight was delayed nearly two hours. Effectively, we were back on the original schedule. Nice try. We find that should you stare at the information board long enough, it will change. Sure enough, the delay was extended a further half-hour. Apparently, there was some poor weather in both San Francisco and San Diego. For those who don’t know much about the latter city, bear in mind, that when it drizzles and the temperature in winter falls below 60F, it is considered bad weather. We remarked to the fellow behind the counter should someone from Chicago overhear that kind of thinking he would fall over laughing hysterically. Short of calling for an emergency evacuation of San Diego, the personnel grounded planes and commiserated over coffee in the concourses. Aha! Now we understand the purpose of the coffee shops.
Anyway, our last scheduled flight was at 5pm to reach San Francisco for a 10:45pm departure to New Zealand (An hour and twenty minutes flight). After five departure changes, the reissue of boarding cards three times and our exclamation at each change that we would miss the connection, we finally took off at 8:50pm, after sitting on the tarmac for thirty minutes. We had considered remaining in San Diego but the attendant told us it would be problematical especially as they held our bags and would not return them. As all the clothes were clean, it did not seem like a good idea to forfeit them. Dirty clothes? Perhaps.
Would we make the connection? We developed an increased level of stress and asked the attendant to let us know the status of the Auckland flight. ‘Of course, I will,” she answered and then never followed through. We asked another to try and allow us to embark from the plane at landing ahead of the crowd. “Of course, I’ll arrange that for you.” After all, weren’t we flying the ‘friendly skies’? She didn’t.
We darted off the plane, heading for international departures, which was almost a mile distant. To our delight, the New Zealand flight was delayed an hour. Wonderful. It would have lowered the stress level had someone from the cabin staff mentioned that factoid to us. The hour delay increased further as the plane had not arrived from down-under. Quite something to contemplate. The aircraft flies for fourteen hours non-stop, carrying a full load, unloads, refuels and repeats the performance. Hardly a rest at all.
Finally, the flight was called three hours late. We boarded, waited, sat and contemplated travel: The previous evening (technically, two evenings before), we had occasion to call the airline as the ‘online check-in’ procedure did not operate. The short story is that the airline had had a hiccup with its computer system three months earlier but not before sending us a full itinerary stating we were ‘ticketed and paid’. The representative of the ‘Friendly Skies’ informed us that to allow us to fly we would have to make additional payments: $400 for an earlier ticket change that was botched by the computer and $750 because prices had since risen. Effectively, I replied, we had been issued tickets, charged and paid for them and because they had internal problems months previously, we would need to pay a further $1,150. At that stage, we could see the advantage of purchasing stock in an airline.
After some debate and he referring to a supervisor, we settled the transaction in which we agreed to pay $ 19.22. How this figure was arrived at is cause for serious consideration. Nevertheless, it was a pleasure to incur the charge under the circumstances.
The fellow, based in India, then asked whether we wanted to ‘hire a car’. It was an unusual question from an airline employee, we thought. It filled us with deep concern. Such a lack of confidence in their aircraft was disconcerting. Jen wanted to know where we would fill the tank along the way. In all our flights across the Pacific, we’ve never noticed a 7-11 or even a lone gas station for that matter. Nixon may have opened the road to China but we did not see the point of establishing a path to New Zealand. Finally, we realized he was cross-selling other services. Relief. So apparently, in a rather strange way, we saved $1,120 which was never due in the first place. Huh!
Back to the ‘henpit’ where the female pilot made an announcement. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ she began, ‘we regret to inform you that the flight has been cancelled. Because of the delay at the gate (now engine issues), the crew is not allowed to fly—it would be too long a shift and hence, illegal.’ Don’t you just love it when people keep on saying ‘sorry about that’ casually as if they bumped you, slightly. We stumbled off the plane at 2:30am. The dark ‘Friendly Skies’ personnel had forgotten to think of something intelligent and comforting to say so they mentioned they were waiting for headquarters in Chicago to decide what to do. ‘Sorry about the delay.’ Eventually, we were herded to counters, given tickets to a hotel and took a shuttle to get there, turning off the light, after a bath, at 4:15am. While trying to get fresh boarding tickets for the new flight for the next day, the attendant said we did not have an ETA for Australia (destination after New Zealand), a sort of visa. A further complication. The funny thing is that tickets for the previous night’s flight were issued without the ETA. What changed? Meantime, somewhere in Auckland our rental car was accruing fees, our hotel would have a no-show and we weren’t feeling that loved either. We also learned from a fellow passenger that some people were abandoned at the airport when the remaining personnel members quit after 3am. Jenni had managed to get to the front of the queue while I notified the New Zealand contacts of our delay.
After a couple of hours sleep, not being allowed to remain in the hotel much after 12pm, we had to hope the flight would depart in what looked like poor weather. Meantime, the mountains were calling and we were out of range. A touch that can only arise from bureaucracy was in the form of an email the following morning. Someone from the ‘Friendly Skies’ company sent us a survey to complete. Bear in mind, there was an element of stress, suffering, wasted time, kids and babies treated roughly and financial hardship to all, with uncertainty thrown in for good measure. With this in mind, the company wanted to know what we thought of the snacks of gummy bears, cookies and chips provided at 2am earlier that morning. We might have offered any number of answers. However, the nub of a fair reply is that notwithstanding the ordeal, we thought the chips should have been more salted. This would have made the night and morning palatable. As the airline told us frequently, ‘Sorry about that…now shut up.’ (One ground staff member was clearly out of her depth in communicating with passengers. The crew on the next flight, the same one of the canceled flight, was great, however.)
We arrived in New Zealand, losing nearly three days of activity: One day of travel, a day delay and twenty-one hours of time change. We zipped out of the airport, collected a rental car but stopped in a McDonalds for tea. Sitting next to us were two women speaking Afrikaans, who had settled in New Zealand. After leaving the content couple following a pleasant chat, we headed on a three-hour trip south and then a further three hours the next day to reach close to the trail-head for a 4-day tramp in remote wilderness of the north island.
Cheers,
Jenni and Jeffrey
No comments:
Post a Comment