How do you spell stress? C-O-V-I-D-1-9
We have been trying to heed the government of Canada's advice, telling all Canadians overseas to head home, but that is not a simple process.
Looking at our booking online, we can see that Air New Zealand has cancelled our Wellington to Auckland flight on March 28th, but our Auckland to Vancouver flight is still okay. So we at least need to get a flight to Auckland sorted out, even if we cannot get out earlier than March 28th. To complicate matters, we see different details for our reservation on the iPad than we see on the pc. The pc shows the flight as booked, but the iPad shows us on a later flight out of Wellington, which would have us miss our connection in Auckland Grrrrrrrr!
Air New Zealand is asking only people travelling in the next 48 hours to contact them, but we have tried to contact them anyway, on the premise that we would like to travel in the next 48 hours. Yesterday we called the airline's New Zealand toll free number, but after hearing an initial recorded announcement and a few clicks, it rang busy. So I tried the Canadian contact number (via Skype), and it just rang and then went dead. Air New Zealand can also accept contact via social media - email, Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, etc. I sent them a message on Whatsapp and got a reply within 5 minutes, but after answering a few detail questions, there was no further communication.
There was no response on Whatsapp overnight, so this morning I started phoning again. I tried the New Zealand number about 15 times, and continued to get the busy signal after the recorded announcement. Then I tried a Skype call to the Canadian number and on about the third attempt, I got through to the automated assistant....at least I was making progress.
After about 15 minutes, a live person came on the line, and told me that she was a volunteer, who was just taking details, so that a priority could be assigned for an agent to call us back, probably within 72 hours. I suggested that we would like to travel within 72 hours, and was told that our priority would be increased. I provided her all the details of the cancelled flight on March 28th, and our desire to fly earlier if possible (but only on the direct Auckland to Vancouver flight). Knowing the stress that she must be under, especially as she is a volunteer, I wished her an excellent rest of the day, figuring that being nice couldn't hurt our priority either. We don't want to fly on a multi-leg flight, as that could expose us to more people on the planes and in the airports. So many things to consider, it makes my head whirl.
At least now we are in the queue for action, and so hopefully will get a call back in the next day or so. It is amazing how that one live contact with Air New Zealand has significantly lowered the stress level - they now know we exist, and hopefully someone will care enough to call us back. So now we can relax, and enjoy a few more days in Napier.
In a few minutes we will be heading over to the Napier airport to meet my sister Margaret, who is coming to enjoy a few days with us. With only twelve virus cases in New Zealand, the risk is small that she will catch it enroute and infect us. The plan is that we will drive her back to Wellington, when we know what our revised travel arrangements are, further limiting our collective exposure.
I need a drink!
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