Tuesday 12 July 2011

...and international travel is easy too

I'd noted a couple weeks ago how simple and inoffensive domestic travel is in New Zealand. Todays's report: Trans Tasman is dead simple too. I'm off to Canberra this morning, catching a seven am flight from Christchurch.

I parked at the airport at 5:55. I got my boarding pass and checked my bag using a kiosk, cleared security, cleared NZ exit customs and was waiting in line for coffee at the gate by 6:20. Now I've a minute to kill before boarding. So I thought I'd remind American readers what air travel is supposed to be like.

4 comments:

  1. Oh. And the folks at security were unfailingly friendly. The folks ahead of me in line wheeled their disabled son through the metal detector without any jackass making the kid get out of the chair or molesting him.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds lovely Eric. However, how much of that time saved was simply due to low number of travelers?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Maybe a bit on its being a lowish volume airport but recall that capacity is endogenous to expected travel volume.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good results also due to that Air New Zealand rules. Always staffed up adequately to meet demand and tons of kiosk options.

    Currently in a long queue in Sydney waiting to drop my bags for domestic transfer and collect Qantas boarding pass. Qantas is far more like an American airline in customer service...

    ReplyDelete