My brother travels a lot, both for work and to visit family – my nephew's studying in the US. So he’s made about three trips during the pandemic, done MIQ twice, and since MIQ was dropped he’s made about three more trips, he left again on another one yesterday. Given I’m not flying anywhere I always appreciate the update on his experiences. 

Yesterday, he sends me a text from the airport, he’s mad. Mad because all the stuff he’s moaned about on all his previous trips are still not fixed or addressed, in fact he reckons it’s the worst it’s ever been. How’s that possible? Given we keep hearing from Auckland airport that they’re stepping up their game, given we keep hearing from Air NZ that they’re looking to streamline services, given we keep hearing from the Government that they want to make it smoother for people to travel. Newsflash – it’s still not any of those things. 

My brother got to the airport to discover, one, that all the retail is still shut, it’s a ghost town. Why?

And two, that the Koru lounge is still heaving, but lacking the food and drinks to accommodate all the people.

The people travelling are not business people either, he says they’re old people, young families and young couples, in other words, pent up holiday makers heading off probably to the islands to sit in some sun and feel like they’ve had a break outside of New Zealand. They’re obviously people not worried about having to pay increasingly expensive mortgages, or not in the so called ‘squeezed middle’. 

The queues are still too long, he says, the airport is still woefully under staffed. And yet, there are fewer people travelling than pre-Covid. How is this still possible? He gets to his plane, he’s flying business class on Air New Zealand, and the first thing he has to do when he gets to his seat is remove the half eaten pastry replete with crumbs left on it. He assumes the plane’s been cleaned but it doesn’t look like it. 

Certainly the seats weren’t freshened up if the last flight’s pastry is still sitting there. The flight’s chocka, which is not surprising given how few flights are on at the moment, the crew is under staffed and appear to be struggling he said. He reckons Air New Zealand is no longer the personable sanctuary of the sky it used to be, but instead an awkward under resourced threadbare operation. 

Gone is the airline's quintessentially Kiwi culture of fun, innovation and pride, and instead he says, it’s just cringe. That’s not a ringing endorsement from a regular business traveller, and that’s before we even get to the palaver you have to go through to get back into the country with all the Government’s RAT rules and regulations. And if you think my brother may’ve just been a one-off traveller having a bad experience, think again. 

I was talking to café owner yesterday who’s cooking in her own kitchen because she still can’t get a chef, and she tells me she had to travel overseas for a wedding and she couldn’t believe the state of, one, the airport, and two, the plane. I said that’s funny my brother said exactly the same thing. 

So the airport and Air NZ are still not up to scratch, yet the prices are through the roof. So my question is, how long are we expected to wait, for them to sort this out?