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LETTER 436
In New Zealand, Experiencing the Miracle of Flight Anew
The country's domestic airlines play a crucial role in connectivity. But for the casual flier, even the journey is captivating.
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A Sounds Air plane going from Taupo to Wellington, New Zealand.Credit...Sounds Air
By Natasha Frost
March 21, 2024
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The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. This week’s issue is written by Natasha Frost, a reporter based in Melbourne.
The other week, approximately 32 years into my career as a seasoned flier, I experienced air travel as if for the very first time — the flight of angels, of billionaires, of dreams. (It was still in coach class.)
On a recent reporting trip in New Zealand, I arranged to spend the weekend visiting an old friend who now lives near Havelock, a town of around 600 people at the top of the country’s South Island, about 50 miles due west of Wellington, where I was traveling from.
With the Cook Strait between New Zealand’s North and South Islands in the way, the easiest option was to take a domestic flight — one of hundreds that zip across the country every day.
Flying domestically in New Zealand is only marginally more rigorous than boarding a bus. If you don’t have baggage to check in, you may walk through the airport doors half an hour before your flight departs. No one will check your ID at any point, and you don’t even need to show your boarding pass to pass through security, which usually takes a minute or two, with no limits on liquids. In some smaller airports, there is no security at all.
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To get to Havelock, I booked a seat on a flight run not by Air New Zealand, the national airline, but by Sounds Air, one of the country’s far smaller “regional carriers,” of which there are around half a dozen.
More on New Zealand White Island Volcano Victims: More than four years after dozens of people were injured or killed in the devastating volcanic eruption, victims and their families have been awarded a total of about 10.2 million New Zealand dollars, or roughly $6.2 million. A Rightward Shift: New Zealand has long been lauded for trying to do right by its Indigenous people, but a new conservative government is considering rolling back policies that benefit Māori. A Feathered Icon Breeds Again: New Zealand’s national bird, the kiwi, has hatched eggs in the wild in the Wellington area for the first time in living memory, thanks to a multiyear conservation effort. Māori Wardens: With lurid crime stories dominating headlines, New Zealand’s new prime minister has pitched a tougher approach to law enforcement. The strategies used by Indigenous volunteers can present compelling alternatives.
Departing Sounds Air from Wellington, you bypass security screenings altogether. Your ticket to ride is little more than a reusable piece of green laminated paper that reads “Boarding Pass to Blenheim.” Checking in a bag? They sling it into the back of the nine-seat plane. And don’t bother going to the carousel on arrival. It’ll be handed to you as you get off.
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Natasha Frost writes The Times’s weekday newsletter The Europe Morning Briefing and reports on Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. She is based in Melbourne, Australia. More about Natasha Frost
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