THUMBS UP THUMBS DOWN

To Hamilton Airport for its lack of facilities for international flights. After finally boarding a delayed Freedom Air flight out of Sydney to Hamilton just prior to Christmas, intrepid assistant editor Natalie Akoorie arrived at the trans- Tasman airport only to be shut out of immigration while the three attending customs officers processed a flight from Brisbane. After queuing for at least 45 minutes her and her hubby finally for through customs only to face another queue once they had retrieved their bags from the motionless carousel. Before being able to exit the terminal each passenger had to have their bags xrayed, which is fine except the airport only has one x-ray machine, making the process very time-consuming for the hundreds of passengers from both flights. So instead of getting home at a reasonable hour from a flight which was supposed to land at 11pm, they finally got in the door at 2am. And unfortunately for one poor traveller, he was picked at random by a customs officer to undergo a bag-search. He was still at the airport as the last of the passengers cleared the x-ray machine with the contents of his bag being thoroughly explored thanks to a privacy waiver he had no choice but to sign. I suppose it was better than having his bags not show up at all, which is what happened the next night to a friend flying in on the same service, to the same airport.

To “no frills” airline Freedom Air which, although often costs the same as other normal trans-Tasman flights, is severely lacking in service. When returning from New Zealand to Sydney in the New Year this reporter turned up to Hamilton Airport only to find a check-in queue out the door and barely moving. The reason being that the 3.30pm flight to Sydney had been cancelled. Freedom Air staff were advising passengers one-by-one as they checked in of the crisis with the only option the choice between two flights the next morning out of Auckland at 6.30am with Qantas and 7am with Air New Zealand. Either that or wait until Wednesday to fly out of Hamilton, which wasn’t an option for most people. After queuing for an hour we were booked on the Qantas flight and made to wait another 30 minutes for several coaches which would bus the stranded plane-load of passengers. Apparently Freedom Air knew the plane was broken on Sunday morning but did not make the attempts to contact passengers to inform them of the issue. Had we known earlier we could have rescheduled to catch another service our of Auckland the same afternoon instead of having to get up in the middle of the night, travel to another country, race back to our home to shower and change and arrive back at work from our holiday late, exhausted and not much good at all. NB: Two weeks after this episode Freedom Air emailed us to apologise for the disruption to our flight and offer each fare-paying passenger a $200 travel credit which can be used by us or transferred to family and friends to be used within 12 months. This letter and credit is greatly appreciated and goes some way to restoring my faith in the airline.

To Air New Zealand for its lovely new 777 fleet. The planes, which temporarily service the trans-Tasman route bound for San Francisco, not only offer movie screens in every seat, but on demand movies from a selection of about 40 of the latest films. They also feature leather seats with increased pitch, plus in business class passengers can enjoy those luxurious lie-flat beds and angled beds also found in Virgin Atlantic Upper Class. These 777 planes also feature a premium economy product as well. The airline really is leading the way against its Australasian counterparts having also lined up first for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner in which Air New Zealand was one the launch carriers. The company has purchased four of the 787s.