Last weekend I flew to Wellington and back from Auckland. Don't get me started on why I flew from Auckland.
Anywho, why would people print boarding passes anymore? I use an app on my phone, scan it as I walk through to board the plane and it prints me areceipt with my seat number on it.
I also never select my seat beforehand, 'cause who wants to pay extra for that on a 45- minute flight? So it's like Russian roulette - you might get an awesome seat, you might get a horrible one.
You might get a middle seat with awesome and awful on either side. Which is what I got on the weekend ...
Let's start with awful. How do you feel about a 45-minute flight next to a large man, who is also an awkwardly loud chatty man aaaaand isn't a huge fan of soap. Yay for seat roulette.
Though he did have one redeeming feature - he managed to get us a second beer for free by sweet-talking the flight attendant ... who was a guy.
Before the 'you can't hassle a big person' brigade pen their letters of complaint, I'm a big person too. It's a fact, we're annoying on a plane. It's just physics.
Let's move to awesome. The guy sitting on the other side didn't say a word all flight. He was a small man. He played Candy Crush Saga the entire flight, on silent. Legend.
At this point I'd like to point out that on flights from Tauranga to Wellington (smaller plane) there's usually either one person, or no-one, sitting next to you.
It cuts the chances of your flight being ruined by a chatty man by a good 90 per cent.
The best part of the flight was the captain announcing over the speaker mid-flight, mid- reasonably bad turbulence, with a strong Kiwi accent and saying "Sorry folks, the wind's changed and we've got a bit of this for the next ..."
The turbulence stops: "Never mind, forget I said anything. As you were." A pilot with a sense of humour is what every flight needs.
That and a one-time, consequence-free, ejector seat for the person of your choice.
Will Johnston is host of The Hits 95FM Day Show. Live and local from 9am till 3pm, every weekday in the Bay of Plenty.
