Behind the travel squeeze
The perfect storm is here and it’s engulfing travel. Two years of pent-up travel demand is colliding with a shortage of capacity, especially for flyers.
Airlines, airports and their suppliers are frantically recruiting to fill thousands of jobs lost when the pandemic first hit, there’s a struggle to get stored planes back in the air and, in New Zealand, there’s a Covid-19 wave and more winter illness than usual during the school holidays. Not to mention meteorological storms.
Right throughout the travel system, the impact has been felt. Jet fuel is running low in the lower South Island necessitating rationing, and when travellers arrive they’re checking into hotels and going to hospitality venues suffering acute labour shortages.
It’s cold comfort for those whose flights have been cancelled or delayed this week in New Zealand, but overseas travel is much bumpier. Heathrow Airport this week took the extraordinary step of restricting the number of tickets airlines flying through it can sell to the middle of September. In Europe and the United States, tens of thousands of flights have been cancelled.
Most travellers are still getting where they need to, but disruption comes as airfares are soaring; airlines facing higher fuel costs with pandemic-ruined balance sheets have little room to absorb them.
A survey in the US found four out of five travellers this year have experienced at least one travelrelated issue with high prices being most prominent followed by long waits and poor service.
Here, the onus is on airlines to be proactive in rectifying problems they do have control over. Hourslong wait times for Air New Zealand’s helplines reflect the labour shortage and complex ticketing problems, but they are unacceptable. True, the airline wasn’t given much time to rebuild given the short notice of border reopenings, but it needs to sort out its communications — fast.
Law changes that would have required airlines to refund tickets for cancelled flights as of right have been dropped from an overhaul of Civil Aviation legislation so that way of easing passenger angst is off the table.
Paying more and getting less is leading to frustration and there’s a risk of frontline staff bearing the brunt. They are doing their best in incredibly trying conditions. It is time for Be Kind Part II.
Quite aside from the death and serious illness still being wrought by Covid-19, its wider impact is a reminder of the seriousness of a pandemic. What was an everyday, routine activity is now often difficult. Add in the many moving parts of a business trip or a family holiday, and there’s potential for travel to become very messy.
Now’s the time for a truly grassroots kindness movement among travellers who should bear in mind that at least they can travel.
One of Mr Neat’s hens has started cock-a-doodledoing. We had our suspicions right from the beginning when we bought the latest five hens.
However, I also thought the Scooby Doo was a rooster when she was little and she’s definitely not. Not an expert when it comes to sexing chickens that’s for sure.
This chicken was named Ash and as it got older and its feet grew and its neck stuck up and out when it walked and the black feathers in its tail grew longer and starting turning a beautiful shade of green, we got more and more suspicious.
Last Saturday morning while I was in the wash-house I heard a faint cock-a-doodle. I said to Mr Neat: “I hear crowing.”
He said: “You are hearing things again.”
So we both went onto the porch and, sure enough, after a few minutes the crowing started. A bit scratchy and jerky but, I tell you what, after a couple of days he certainly found his voice and is loud and proud.
In fact, he is so proud he decided to show off his new found voice at 4.30am one day this week.
Thankfully I didn’t hear it, but Mr Neat had a word to say about Ash and his showing off in the morning.
We have decided that winter is not a bad time to have a rooster because he wakes a bit later (except for one morning) and he goes off to bed with the girls by dark, which at the moment is about 5.30pm. Spring and summer will be a different story. But how cute would it be to have some little baby chicks? The chickens helped me a lot when my Aussie family come to visit. The first thing I did after hugging one of them was grab my new granddaughter for the very first time and walk with her over to the birds.
She looked over my shoulder once at her mother, then at me and at the chickens and watched them with fascination.
No tears, from either of us, I didn’t want to frighten her so had given myself a good talking to before they arrived. No tears. I actually got smiles. It was a really special moment for me. I took her to visit the chickens several times over their stay.
It was hard to get my hands on her though because all her cousins were fighting over her.
It was a crazy few days full of laughter, shopping, eating, eeling, gocart riding, horse riding, mini golf, more shopping and more eating.
It was loud, chaotic and messy, but I loved every single moment of it. There were some really funny moments with the children but one that stands out for me was my 13-year-old grandson, born in Australia, who came out of the borrowed campervan, went inside and told his mother it had been snowing. It was a very heavy frost — he had never seen a frost.
There were disagreements of course, mainly over who got to hold, feed or sit next to the baby, but considering most of the time there were nine children ranging in age from 14 (he would not like to be called a child) to 15 months with many of them only six months apart, I reckon we did really well.
Then, before we knew it, it was
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time for them to leave.
Although we had made plans for November which is only four months ways, I couldn’t hold back the tears this time. They are all home safe and sound now and on Saturday I called for one of their birthdays. The baby came on the screen, looked at me, smiled and waved.
In these brittle times that’s all it takes to make me happy, a smile and a wave, oh and a quiet morning with no crowing.