I have a few posts backed up here as I have been working out some communication issues and travelling like a post-affair congressman.

Qantas.

For my second trip back to the States in a month Qantas was offering a deal out of Christchurch which I jumped on. The flights themselves were comfortable, with nice staff, generous amenities, plenty of room, and on-time. The logistics, on the other hand, left a bit to be desired.

Arriving in Christchurch for my outbound leg I discovered to my dismay that the airline Qantas had booked me upon for the leg to Auckland had no one there. Literally. The entire end of the terminal was abandoned except for an old guy with a suspicious resemblance to Scruffy from Futurama pushing a broom. After some asking around I found that no-one would, in fact, be in. They cancelled and rerouted my flights without telling me. Getting Qantas on the line, they seemed surprised that I had not gleaned this through osmotic data gathering of some sort and implied that it was my fault that I had missed the rescheduled flight two hours earlier. After a discussion of this point, the young lady on the phone rebooked me at which juncture I asked for an upgrade for my trouble. She said she would try.

Needless to say when I was preparing to leave Auckland nothing had been done, not even a request for an upgrade or a note to me to tell me what had happened. As a matter of fact, Qantas holds the record in my experience of least likely to reply to customer issues of any big airline. When I called to ask the status, a young man spoke to me, went to discuss this with the young lady in question, and came back to tell me that I had basically made up the part of the conversation regarding the upgrade. I submitted a question online regarding this shortly after, and nobody has bothered to reply. So be it. When I arrived in the States I looked at the new itinerary and realized that my returning flights had been made unworkable by Qantas' changes as well. Another hour on the phone to work that out. No apologies, no upgrades, just my lost time.

So as I said, nice flight, but the customer service is shit. Air New Zealand keeps my dollars.

While waiting for my 747 to leave Auckland, I did notice a few things on the briefing cards. First, a nice view on the bottom here of how Qantas apparently sees their relations with their customers:

Lastly, the list of prohibited electronic items. It shows a Furby. Do you remember Furbies? I barely do. As I recall they made some vocalizations and the eyes and mouth moved creepily. Why this would be banned, and in what way Furbies merit specific mention is beyond me. Is there something about Aussies and Furbies that is not mentioned to outsiders? Should I be frightened of kids with nasal accents clutching vegemite-stained animatronic toys in public places? Not to mention that you cannot use pocket calculators during the ascent or descent. No math for you, have some passenger pellets instead.

Plus, the All Blacks thumped the Wallabies last night. So chew on that, Qantas.