Letters to the Travel Editor
Front and centre
I read former runner Vern Walker’s lament about Americans having no knowledge of New Zealand or where it is [‘Letters to the Travel Editor’, Travel, March 5].
Yet another reason for all our travel firms to use the Pacific-centred world map on all their material. Nick Nicholas
Greenlane
Weighty matters
I don’t often get to travel with Air New Zealand due to their premium pricing but my daughter returned from the UK recently on a bargain $1430 Virgin/Air New Zealand codeshare flight. She commented that the baggage weighing process out of London was stringent and it proved no different in Auckland.
Her one item was weighed on the auto baggage scales and rejected through being 1.2kg over the 23kg allowance with a $145 “per item” penalty requested. In her case she offloaded the balance to a cabin bag and, weighing about 50kg herself, was in aggregate well below the average passenger weight.
Weight tolerance is evidently 0.9kg so I’d advise readers to pack accurately when flying with our national airline.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Cornish,
Devonport
Still leaning
So much nastiness from Vera Alves about those who recline their seats on planes [Travel, March 5]. She says she began a flight feeling “a little bit cranky’ which made it into the subheading but was far too tame.
If her opinion piece is to be taken seriously, by the flight’s end she was somewhere way past cranky.
Calling the person seated in front of her a “selfish moron” suggests she sweats the small stuff big time. Perhaps Alves also suffers red-hot road rage for minor misdemeanours. Or was her aggressive tone a technique to get her words read?
How come many of us can fly cattle class and be unaffected (okay, maybe faintly irritated for a moment) when the person in front reclines their seat? Airline seats recline. Some people use this feature. She might like to try it.
Rae Roadley
Maungaturoto
Although I can perhaps have some sympathy for complaints about reclining-seat travellers, this pales when I think about my last trip to Bali.
Occupying three seats next to my end seat were a family of four, with two large children, who spent nearly seven hours leaning over me while standing in the corridor space. Then when they were seated with children on their laps, their friends from the other side of the aircraft would come along to chat, also occupying the same corridor space. Is this acceptable to the airline or its passengers?
The worst part was we had been offered Premium Economy at a reduced price two days prior to departure for about $400 each.
Apparently Air New Zealand cannot figure out four people in three seats don’t go, so never again will
I fly this airline by choice.
Bruce Woodley
Birkenhead, Auckland
In the wash
I’m surprised Tim Roxborogh didn’t think of the obvious answer as to why hotels only provide liquid soap in their bathrooms [‘Travel bugs’, March 5]. A bar of soap, once used, can’t be left for the next guest, as liquid soap can. What would they do with all those slightly used bars of soap? Hence the liquid soap solution, as it can be used to the last drop by a succession of guests.
The answer is to do what my husband always did — take your own cake of soap with you, as big a one as you like!
Gretchen Leach
So far, so lonely
Regarding Linda Thompson’s piece on the pros and cons of coach tours [Travel, March 12].
Her assertion you will never be lonely can be very wrong as my uncle was desperately lonely on his trip as all couples paired off for dinners, etc. He was never included and wandered Europe on his own.
His advice is go with a friend. Don’t expect to find a friend if everyone else is paired off and you’re the odd one out.
Cheers, Paul Oates
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