The outbound experience at Wellington has changed this somewhat.
Firstly, it took almost 10 minutes to reach the front of the International check-in queue - there is no option with Air NZ to DIY check-in an international itinerary.
There was only one International Star Gold/Business/Koru check-in desk staffed at Wellington, and the people in front were a large family checking in their entire personal belongings, as far as I can tell. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have expected this to present a problem, but the guy behind the counter seemed to make a right meal of it, was confounded by technology (a recalcitrant baggage tag printer), and didn't have the right tags and stickers to put on the checked items, and had to wander off to get them.
Eventually my turn came, and he started to check me in. He then looked at my well-travelled passport, which despite being kept inside a plastic protection wallet, is starting to show signs of the last 6 years duty - the gold print on the front is a shadow of it's former self, there is a good collection of stickers on it, and the edges are a little worn. There was also a small dog-earing on the corners, which has developed over the past couple of months, from the way most immigration staff tend to 'thumb' at the pages of the passport.
He pronounced it of 'poor condition', and wandered off for what seemed like an age (it really was about 5-10 minutes) to make a phone call to his 'team leader', while the queue behind me grew and grew.
On returning, he said that Wellington weren't prepared to 'take the rap' for boarding me, and would only check me and my belongings to Auckland, where they could 'make the call'.
Apparently, if it had been anywhere other than the US, they probably wouldn't have bothered. I did point out that I do frequently travel to the US, and he said 'Yes, that's why we think you won't have a problem, but we're letting Auckland make the call, as we don't have direct flights to the US'.
This personally stinks of internal targets to me (i.e. 'if he gets bounced by the Americans and comes back, it won't be a black mark against us'), totally detached from giving a damn about the customer.
It also turns out that while he was on the phone to his team leader, he was thumbing through the passport and picking at the dog-eared corner, thus doubling the size of the dog-eared area, and causing the edges of the back page to start to de-laminate.
He had also folded the outside of the passport back on itself, and in doing so damaged the spine of the passport - causing a rip along the spine on the inside front cover.
He took the minor wear and tear and exacerbated it!
He also said that it would be Auckland where I'd have to go to get an urgent replacement passport, which turned out to be a load of crap! Wellington is the Capital of NZ, and that's where the British High Commission is located, and to where I would have to report should I require a passport urgently replacing!
Anyway, in the Koru Lounge, the buffet seems to have been well picked over unfortunately - probably because it's a Saturday and there's less business people travelling, but I have had some rather nice chocolate brownie with cream and a coffee, but not a patch on what was offered for breakfast on Sunday morning, nor that afternoon in Auckland.
Eventually, our flight was called about 15 minutes late, so down to gate 10 and through sensible (no 'laptop out, shoes off' crap) security. I asked one of the NZ airport security people about this, and they said that with their x-ray equipment, there's no need to remove laptops from their bags, unless they don't get a clear image, and then they will re-scan seperately.
Our aircraft was the same 737 which brought me to Wellington, ZK-SJB, and we were boarded by row number from the back.
Interestingly, there wasn't a scrum, just a patient queue of people, and those who hadn't been called remained seated.
Boarding seemed to go very smoothly as a result, and before long, I was sat in 2A, with an open seat next to me, the door was shut and we pushed back (quite a long pushback actually), before departing to the South, and turning right to head for Auckland.
The service onboard was quick and efficient (just tea, coffee and water on NZ domestic), and apart from some
occasional turbulence, the flight was comfortable, and we were only 10 minutes late arriving in Auckland, after making a very rapid descent to fly quite low over the water on the way into the airport.
One bag was out fairly rapidly, but the second bag was a way (like a few minutes) behind, despite both being priority tagged. I dropped the bags onto a trolley, and did the walk over to the International Terminal at Auckland, to find out if the Kiwis wanted to let me go!
That was an added hassle, as had I been through checked as I was expecting, my bags would have made it automatically onto the International flight.
I was not a happy bunny at this stage...
