Travel Wires

Welcome aboard . . .

Travel Wires is adopting the brace position today, a mark of respect to colleague Eli Orzessek, who watched and rated all of Air Aotearoa’s quirky, cutesy and kitschy safety videos. The new version, as you will know, features a cast of 600, a borrowed rap tune (that didn’t work out so well for the National Party, guys) and is titled It’s Kiwi Safety ,whichis rather more delicate than most raps. Eli rated it highly but was not as fulsome as CNN: “The video is entertaining, informative and a testament to the country’s incredible diversity.” Rapper Randa (pictured) won praise: “The call for kindness amid safety rules is distinct … One could argue the video functions as much as a safety tool as a tourism campaign for a country that proudly celebrates and embraces diversity.” The Daily Mail noted: “It went down well on social media, praised for its celebration of young people among other things.”

We’re bloody Aussies, mate

Virgin Australia has been smacked around the … er, ears for its plan to honour Aussie war veterans. Vets would get priority boarding and civilian passengers would be asked to stand and cheer them before takeoff, as US airlines do. It didn’t reckon on the vets, whose most polite response was to call it an embarrassment and a lickspittle embrace of US-style nationalism. Retired army officer Ray Martin said: “We’re the kind of people who stand back for others. We don’t need priority in a line to board a plane,” and suggested veterans would be better served by decent social welfare. Qantas sniped: “We carry a lot of exceptional people every day, including veterans, police, paramedics, nurses, and firefighters, and so we find it difficult to single out one group as part of the boarding process.”

He isn’t wrong

Western Australia’s government has long wanted to turn the state into a tourist mecca. Tourism Minister Paul Papalia’s latest plan to woo domestic and international tourists: WA will be pitched as “the road trip state” to promote self-drive holiday routes. Papalia said: “When you get out of Perth and into those regional areas, you encounter something that you’re not going to meet in many other places.” As social media posters pointed out, sharing pictures from Wolf Creek, the horror film set in the Outback that told of three road-trippers taken captive by a deranged killer after they experienced car troubles.