Air New Zealand responds 8 days later

After 8 days of silence, ir New Zealand responds: 

Dear Mrs Marendy

Thank you for your recent email.

I am sorry that your in-flight experience to Brisbane earlier this month was unsatisfactory.  This is most disappointing and in no way accords with the standards we aspire to achieve, especially as you are a valued customer. 

Whilst I can appreciate that the flight attendant was adhering to guidelines, I also understand the importance of keeping our passengers informed.  In the airline industry there are many parts of the travel process over which we have little control, however the performance of our staff as they serve our customers is something that we can.  I was very concerned to read of your experience and the lack of apology for the faulty tray table.

With regards to the lack of meal choice, it is extremely difficult to estimate the percentage of passengers favouring one meal choice over another.  It is standard practice to cater a flight 100%, this being made up of two meal choices.  Although it would be preferable to allow our customers their first choice, regrettably this is not always possible.  And it is not feasible to over cater a flight, as there is simply no galley stowage available to accommodate this.  Having said that, I appreciate that you remain disappointed with this experience and the lack of choice. 

Although we cannot undo this negative experience, it is my hope that our positive virtues which have won your patronage in the past will be a consideration when you choose an airline to travel with in the future.

Mrs Marendy, thank you for taking the time to express your concerns.   It is always disappointing when our customers are unhappy with any aspect of their flight experience and we appreciate your comments and feedback in this regard.  We trust that your future travel with us will be more in line with your expectations.

Yours sincerely

......... ...... (removed name)

Customer Support ............ (removed)

Air New Zealand

Our letter on 5th October:

Discussion Thread

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Auto-Response - 05/10/2010 06:52 PM

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Customer (Cos & Melissa Marendy) - 05/10/2010 06:52 PM I flew with Air NZ flight NZ 201 6am 5/10 seat 28D this morning in from Christchurch.  Up until now I have been impressed with Air NZ after using several airlines around the world 18 months ago.

I boarded the plane with my husband and 2 children with a seating pattern 3 together and 1 across the isle which my husband generally takes regardless of who it is allocated to. Today as my husband went to take this seat the steward (unsure of his name) insisted I take it as he mops up a liquid spill from the seat but with no real explanation.  After a very perplexed OK he finally reveals that the child, in the next seat, who just spilt the coke a cola he was drinking, is an unaccompanied minor.  He then informs that it is policy that a female is allocated the seat next door.  That is fine I understand but I was not even aware that I was allocated that seat obviously for that reason.  Explanation straight up would have alleviated any confusion.  That sorted and a blanket put on the seat to mop up the spillage and for me to sit on, (no other clean/mop up occurred) I took my seat.  Early in the flight I tried to put my tray down to fill out the airport paper work and find the tray does not fold out properly or flat and would only sit at about a 30 degree angle interesting enough to fill out forms but even more interesting to eat off and impossible to sit a drink on.  There was no apology or compassion as my breakfast tray, of which I had no choice as by the time they reached the last couple of rows the 'popular' choice had run out, was placed at a precarious angle on the tray.  It was hard enough sitting right at the back near the toilets and work area but I realize someone has to sit there but when everyone else is able to choose and we, few rows included, get what is left it is a bit rough.

Yes I probably sound like a whinger but it seemed to be a comedy of errors with no apology or ready explanation.

If this the way Star Alliance rewards frequent flyers, then we will fly One World in our next round the world trip. Perhaps it is due to us being "free" flyers or that our points were with another Star Alliance airline (Air Singapore).

Arrived at Brisbane Airport safely though somewhat tired this was partially due to early departure 6am 2hrs before departure say no more.Secondly due to the, we find out later, a 5 on the rictor scale after shock during the night. The flight was relatively uneventful. Though were a few silly issues like very last row, insistence Melissa took her set seat steward finally after beating round the bush said female needed to sit next to unaccompanied minor who had just spilt coke on seat had to sit on a folded blanket, they ran out of the nice breakfast just before our row which Melissa than had to eat off a wonky broken tray with no real concern from staff. Nothing major but took the shine off a good trip and an airline that in high regard

Day 21. 4th October 4, 2010 Christchurch Day 2

Tram ride

River through the CBD

Today was our last full day in New Zealand and souvenir shopping was our intended task for today.  We spent the first couple of hours re-packing our bags ready for the flight home. Sadly we leave for Brisbane at 6am NZ time (or 3am AEST), and we need to be at the airport 2 hours before, so sleep will be an issue tonight.  Our Taxi is scheduled to pick us up at 3.30am NZ time, so we will need to be up 2.30 NZ time.  Fun! However our tickets are free due frequent flyer points from our round the world trip, so what’s a little lack of sleep. 

Park in CBD

We headed into the CDB mid morning, to do final sightseeing of the city’s magnificent gardens, churches and old buildings. A tram ride around the city heart followed by a visit to the city’s “Kiwi House” completed our scheduled checklist of what to see and do. 

Tutto Bene

Kiwi House

After a brief lunch at Burger King (sorry Melissa), we headed to the souvenir shops to purchase goodies for all in sundry.  After a couple hours of shopping later we headed back to the unit to get ready for a final dinner at local Italian restaurant “Tutto Bene”, which is claimed by the locals to be the best in Christchurch. The restaurant is run by a local Italian family, and many of the staff have rich Italian accents that complement the food and the décor nicely.

Day 20. 3rd October 3, 2010 Christchurch – a city of bays, churches and gardens

Tunnel to Lyttleton

Today was our last day with the hire car, so we got up reasonably early to get the most out of the car before returning it to Affordable Motorhomes at 4pm. 

Lyttleton Main Street

Lyttleton

Bay view

Lyttleton

We decided to visit Lyttleton, one small satellite village of Christchurch located on a scenic bay. To get there we had to navigate across Christchurch through a long tunnel under a Mountain, very similar to Brisbane’s new Clem7 tunnels in appearance. This tunnel of course is free to all, no toll at all, a welcome surprise given the current trend of toll taking in Queensland’s south-east. 

Earthquake Damage in CBD

View from the Pass of the City

Lyttleton is a quaint seaside village that probably had seen its hey-day about 100 years ago. In fact many of the famous Antarctic explorers had set off from Lyttleton harbor. Most notable explorers are Captain Scott RN in 1901 and later Shackleton in 1908. We discovered that the whale watching trip went out way too late for us to get our hire vehicle back by 4pm, so took an 8 minute ferry trip across the bay to Diamond Harbor. The scenery in the bay and Diamond Harbor was beautiful and scenic.  It iss a favorite area for fishing enthusiasts and folks who just want to relax. After a brief explore we headed back to Lyttleton on the ferry, to continue our trip around to Governors Bay and up over the Mountain pass back to Christchurch. The views of Christchurch on the pass were exceptional. The only issue we had was the sheer drops, and having to dodge the mountain bike cyclists coming up from the city and the bay area. 

Cathedral Square

Once back in Christchurch, we drove into the CBD area and stopped to have lunch. After a brief explore of the local shops in the immediate area, we headed out to Waterloo Road to return our hire car. The return went well, and the good folks of Affordable Motorhomes drove us back to the Randolph. 

Typical inner city park

We then headed out on foot back into the CDB to visit Cathedral Square and its surrounds.  The Randolph is luckily only 25 minutes on foot away from Cathedral Square. Sadly a lot of the grand old historical buildings had been damaged in the CDB, though their architectural beauty is still very much apparent.  We saw some vacant lots showing recent demolition debris and were unsure if they were complete demolitions post earthquake or not.  Many places had sidewalks fenced off and rows of shops vacant. The girls found a host of souvenir shops Post Optionsaround Cathedral Square, and took some time checking out gifts for various friends and family back home.  

On dusk, we headed back to Randolph to have dinner and start preparing for our flight home on the 5^th October.  Re-packing for ease of access is important, as it allows customs to process us effectively without any bother.  Last time we gave them an itemized list of souvenirs, and which bag they are located in and we passed through with no problems at all.

Day 19. 2nd October 2010 Greymouth over Arthur’s Pass and down to Christchurch.

Greymouth Beach

Today we did a final lap around Greymouth, our thoughts are that it is a hard working town, clean and pleasant, but a little dated, and certainly not a tourist magnet, but that’s part of its charm.  We also checked out the town’s beach, a sea of granite pebbles of all shapes and sizes. The final surprise was that the Van Park was located at the end of the Greymouth airport’s runway.  

On the way to Arthur's Pass

Wide Valleys on the way to Arthur's Pass

We headed off out of Greymouth towards Arthur’s Pass about mid morning, a little later than we would have liked. The road inland towards the mountains, was typical of what we have learned to expect in New Zealand, very beautiful, narrow and winding.  The road passed wide valleys with slow moving wide rivers across narrow one lane bridges.  The rivers are very different to explosive narrow rivers to south west or over Alpine valleys near Queenstown or Wanaka.  

Arthur's Pass Kea

We had some minor drama when we had our petrol gauge flash near empty up a steep incline, but then returned to between half and quarter of tank on the level part of the road.  At Arthur’s Pass we filled up at the single pump at the local store. Cos had to surrender his driver’s license to get the petrol pump turned on, apparently the operators can’t see the pump and have had more than a few dishonest folks make off with full tanks without paying. While Cos pumped fuel, the girls and Melissa were greeted by the local variety of parrot called a Kea. The Kea is famous for eating rubber accessories and ‘pretty bits’ off cars, and raiding picnic baskets even apparently opening zippers.  So Melissa and the girls kept the very friendly Keas away from our hire car because given the amount rain NZ gets we might just need the windscreen wipers over the next couple of days.   They are apparently very clever and I believe understand.  I was taking some pictures of one and hoping for some action as they have beautiful red on their tail and under their wings which is generally hidden.  I asked to show me your wings talking to it and instantly he lifted his wing and then the other as if to say ‘this what you want’   Arthur’s pass is mid way to Christchurch, and a pleasant resting place for travelers, so we spent half an hour taking in the sights. 

Past Arthur's Pass

Alps beyond the Pass

We headed down the mountains; the eastern side we discovered seemed more barren than other ranges we have seen. One can see why they used some of scenery for “the land of Rohan” in the movie “Lord of Rings”, as it was sheer rock formations surrounded by brown and grey windswept foot hills.   The road down was definitely not as steep as coming up.

Looking back outside Springfield

We continued on passing through a few little towns.  One, called Springfield, boasted homemade pies so we stopped and had another round of yummy pies for lunch.  We once again drove on for our last driving leg of our holiday with return date tomorrow for our car.   

Blue Penguin

As we approached Christchurch we checked the map for the route to the Randolph.  We discovered that our route took us passed the airport and a destination we wanted to visit, The Antarctic Centre.  So we made our visit.  It was a spectacular place and thoroughly recommend a visit.  Inside is a great insight to Antarctica, it history, geography and all you want to know.  In Oarmaru we saw the Blue Penguins but were unable to photograph them.  We just caught a feeding time here and were able to take pictures which was great.  This ones here are not  wild as in Oamaru but most are refugees that have been rescued, orphaned or wounded by sea debris, rubbish, cars, people or other animals.  The highlight of the visit was a ride in a Hagglund which is an all terrain vehicle that is used in Antarctic to move people around in the harsh undulating environment.  Most of the time it was maneuvering on two tracks but at one stage were semi submerged in 3m of water, using paddles to move and steer through the water.  We all thought it was a bumpy and rough but awesome ride.   Another highlight was experiencing an Arctic Storm.  We rugged up and entered a room that was at a calm -8.  Every half an hour they subject those that are game to 42km/hr wind and a -18 degree wind chill.  Boy was it cold thank goodness it only lasted about 5 minutes.  We certainly did not give this wonderful display the time it deserved.

ATVs at the Arctic Centre

Building behind the Randolph

We left the Centre and headed to our accommodation, The Randolph.  It was quite close only about 10mins towards the city.  Comforting thought when we are getting back to the airport at 4am 5/10 so will probably be even a little quicker.  The accommodation is very pleasant, certainly more up market to what we are used to in Top 10 Holiday Parks but we pre-booked and figured we would be looking for a little more luxury.  After tea, as it was still light we went for a walk up the street towards an up-market shopping area.  It is obviously an older part of town as there were mix different vintage style buildings.  Most of the homes were built in mock Tudor style which was popular second half of last century.  There is also some evidence of earthquake damage with a church with the steeple removed and grounded and brickwork rubble on the ground.  There was also some evidence of shops still being repaired from damage.

Day 18 1st October 2010. Greymouth to Panakaiki to Shantytown to Hokitika and back to Greymouth

Rugged coastline between
Greymouth and Punakaiki

Wave hitting rocky outcrop

Blow Hole

Pan cake

We had an action packed day today.  Firstly we set off to Punakaiki to see the Pancake Rocks. Our travel took in some beautifully rugged coastline on the way.  Certainly well worth the 30min drive, they were amazing.  We can certainly see why they are called pancake rocks as they are just like an oversized stake of pancakes, pancake upon pancake.   The sheer size of the rock formation was amazing as well as incredibly obvious layers of stone formed millions of years ago and pushed to the surface to eroded over the millions of years and continually being so.  Bridges and caves have been eroded causing swells and blow holes.  The waves entering the  blow holes and caves create a continuous explosion of water and sound.  On the way round we met one of the ‘locals’ family of birds called New Zealand Weka.  They were a small, brown, hen like bird and quite friendly.  On talking to the ladies in the café they can be a bit of a pest as they get into the buildings foraging for food and leave their calling cards.  We saw a family with I suspect a fairly new chick.

Weka and chick

After leaving Pancake Rocks we drove back towards Greymouth and through another 15mins to Shantytown.  Shantytown is a small township using some original buildings set up as a living museum to the gold diggings.  There was a China Town, school, shops, jail, hospital etc.  They also had a steam train that was used to transport logs for the mill that was set up to show the milling process and other information.  Here was also where the gold mining happened and we saw a demonstration of gold sluicing and the girls had a more successful go at panning.  If only we had known what we know now when we were in Ross things may have been different.  Although I suspect some gold dust may be sprinkled in the tubs of rubble for we tourists.  But that beside, the guy gave us good instructions on how to pan and the girls set to work.  After some minutes the girls became tired, the guy worked his way through the other panners and finished the job before bottling in a little vial their panned gold.  The girls were very impressed., although the gold seemed very glittery.  After panning we left and headed to the last leg of our day, a further 20mins back to Hokitika.

Striking it rich........not!

We arrived in Hokitika around five a little disappointed to find most of the jade and jewellery shops were closed.  Seemed to be the only place we have seen closed spot on 5pm.  We found one jewellery & second hand bookshop and had a chat to the owner.  Cos bought a book on NZ “Lord of the Rings” movie sites (at a bargain price), and confirmed that he had indeed seen and proudly recognized some of the movie locations on our trip.  The book store owner suggested a walk on the beach if the girls were interested in rocks.  So we did, and it was not quite the beaches we are used to.  The sand was dark and almost sticky like the sand we find near the mangroves.  Instead of shells washed ashore there were rocks.  The girls found quite a few to add to their collection.  The girls have visions of making their fortunes tumbling the rocks to polish them and making jewellery.

Tomorrow we head back to Christchurch via Arthur’s Pass, which famous for stunning Alpine scenery. We should arrive late afternoon after factoring in narrow winding mountain roads and various photo stops to take in the scenery.