Yesterday, I was up well before the sun and to the airport for a 6:45am departure with Air New Zealand from Auckland to Melbourne, Australia. We landed nearly four hours later to a chilly, overcast day. I picked up my rental car and then in the throes of morning rush hour traffic, I made my way into the heart of the city. I will be forever grateful that I've had seven months practice driving on the left side of the road because navigating that traffic was something again.
When I was in Vietnam a few years ago, I met several Aussies who hailed from Melbourne. We'd see them in the hotel restaurant for breakfast every morning and over the course of five days, I heard wonderful things about their city so when I found myself at the car rental counter, GPS in hand, trying to decide how to kill some time, I remembered talk of how pretty the riverfront was.
It just so happened that the riverfront was a smorgasbord of shops and restaurants and I entertained myself quite nicely until my early afternoon meeting, which went really, really, well.
I flew out via Qantas around 5:30pm and that flight is what I wanted to talk about. It was old school, in a good way.
The flight staff were professional and nice. I say that because I fly a lot and there just isn't a ton of courtesy or pleasantries in coach these days. When I fly business, I am treated differently, but economy is usually a whole other shitball experience.
The first thing I noticed was that each of us had a personalized entertainment unit built into the seat in front of us. That is something I've come to expect in business or in long hauls across one of the big oceans but to get that perk on a three and a half hour flight was a complete surprise AND headphones were included. (It's the small things) The movie choices were current, too. I watched "Mirror, Mirror" (not much brainpower required but Julia Roberts was excellent) and "We Bought a Zoo" (has to be one of Matt Damon's worst).
They fed us. I had no idea that Qantas still did this so I hadn't pre ordered a gluten free meal and thought I'd be out of luck. Not a chance. They had an extra meal on hand to accommodate me.
They gave us alcohol with our meal. There is nothing quite as delicious as a bottle of bubbles for which I didn't have to fork over $12. It tasted better, being free and all.
They served us coffee or tea and ice cream for dessert and for the reminder of the flight, they came around with water to keep us hydrated.
The really weird thing is that the ticket price was competitive, less actually, than my morning flight on Air New Zealand. As we disembarked at 11:00pm, I was a tired passenger, because the day had been exceptionally long but the Qantas leg of the trip was......
a pleasure.
I haven't felt that way about air travel since before 9/11.
In the future, with all things being equal, Qantas will, HANDS DOWN, get my business. I hope they don't eventually cave into the nickel and dime, service-deficient wasteland of the competition.
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