Flight of (not-so) Fancy

Mike Bodnar rues his inability to travel in style, but discovers other hidden benefits to long-haul flying...

I recently returned from a month on the other side of the world. 

Well of course you didn't know; I didn't want to make a fuss. Or face abuse for adding to the world's climate woes. Because I didn't go by bicycle, or kayak, and I didn't walk. Train? Tchah! None of those are options when you live in Aotearoa/New Zealand and need to get to the UK, formerly known as Great Britain.

I flew. Obviously not personally - I don't wear tights and a cape - but circumstances dictated that I get there quickly, get some things done, and get back again. 

But let me get one thing straight from the start: I don't like flying. Not because I'm terrified of the aircraft falling out of the sky (I am), or because the carbon footprint of a long-haul flight is damaging to the increasingly-fragile global ecosystem (I know it is, but I refuse to paddle 24,000 miles); No, it's because I can't afford to travel Business Class.

No, seriously, I can't. Not even so-called Premium Economy (which is like like travelling economy but with a marginally less surly attitude from the flight attendants).

Heading for third class check-in

In the end, this is what we pay for when flying internationally: acknowledgement of our social status, with treatment befitting. The more we pay, the nicer we are treated; the less we fork out, the more bottom-feeders we are. The clue is in the tiers: First Class, Business Class, Premium Economy, and - sad wah-wah trumpet FX here - Economy. It's simply, and literally, a class system. Yes, it all ends in tiers. Thank you, I'm here all week.

So, why did I have to go? In a nutshell, we have a property in Surrey that we couldn't sell two years ago due to an incredibly brief and inept tenure by a now-forgotten Tory prime minister called Liz Truss, who within her less-than 50-days in power, managed to crash the British economy. Mortgages suddenly became almost non-existent, lending criteria were tightened, and the property market tanked, taking our chances of selling with it. Instead we had to rent the property out.

Okay, this might seem like a First World Problem, but the truth is, having moved back to New Zealand, we can't afford to buy a property here until our house in England sells. So not only were we paying a mortgage over there, we were forking out for rent here in NZ as well. Something had to be done.

Our property was let without too much trouble, but now the UK tenancy was coming to an end, and it was patently obvious from photos and reports that the tenants had neglected the place for the full twenty months they'd been there. It was not in saleable condition. I needed to go over and fix it up.

Peace of mind

Yes, I can hear you! You're wondering why didn't we just engage tradespeople in England to do the required painting and decorating, the gardening, the general tidying and fixing of things. Because, after some research, it was obviously going to be cheaper for me to go and do it than to pay for workers over there. There's also that intangible: peace of mind - the comfort in knowing a job's been done and done well.

So I got online looking for the cheapest possible flights. If you've ever done this, you'll know how disheartening it can be. Firstly, the nearer you are to when you want to travel, the more expensive the flights are. This is called dynamic pricing (or surge pricing, or demand-based pricing), and is based on a combination of demand and/or desperation. It is basically blackmail. 'Oh, you want to travel next week sir? That'll be twice or three times as much as if you'd booked two months ago. Thank you. Ka-ching!'

Luckily, I did book about two months in advance. Another important thing to consider is how flexible you can be with your travel dates. The more set-in-concrete your plans are, the more it's likely to cost. Some flight search sites show you useful calendars indicating when the cheapest flight options are (I used Webjet, but please note I am not endorsing them as the only or even preferred one).

Then comes the airline you choose. As soon as you go for one of the majors - Air New Zealand, Cathay Pacific, Singapore, Emirates, and so forth (this of course depends where you're flying from/to) - you're paying a premium. I was looking for cheapest, not best or award-winning.

I make no apologies...

And, crucially, I also wanted to avoid travelling via the United States. This was because I have posted anti-Trump memes on social media, and I didn't want to be held by ICE, or turned away during a transit stopover just because I might have offended The Orange One. My options were becoming increasingly limited, especially since I didn't want to spend 56 hours getting to the UK. Oh yes, you can find cheap flights, as long as you're prepared to camp out at three or more airports during lengthy stopovers en route.

But all was not lost. I found what I believed to be a reasonably-priced option with a Chinese airline I'd never heard of: Hainan. For the equivalent of £980 return (approx. NZ$2180) - third class of course - I could fly over, be there for a month, and fly back. 

I was tempted, but first I needed to research what other travellers thought of Hainan Airlines. One man said the service was appalling, and he was allowed just one beer on a 10-hour flight, because, as he was told, 'otherwise you might be drunk.' Others said the food was terrible, and that everything came with rice. This didn't put me off particularly; it was a Chinese airline after all, but one alcoholic drink in 10 hours was something of a worry. But others said it was fine, and nearly everyone rated it five stars for cleanliness. There's nothing quite like knowing your plane is spotless as it plunges to earth.

No, not real; just my imagination on fire...

Despite having never heard of the airline, and fearing their planes would be refurbished Tiger Moths, I booked. I also updated my last will and testament, and sent a Photoshopped image of a Chinese plane on fire to friends and family, just to manage their expectations (see pic).

As it happened, I needn't have worried. Everything went according to plan, even smoothly, although the hours spent in transit in China - along with having to fill in visa forms and be processed by immigration (yes, even for transit), was a pain. Because one of the big downsides of some cheap air travel is stopovers and layovers. 

China immigration. Image: Global Times

Hainan Airlines fly from New Zealand to London Heathrow with two stops en route; the first is at their hub on the island of Haikou (for a few hours), followed by an internal flight to Changsha in mainland China (another few hours' stop). At Haikou we all had to collect our baggage and check it in again before continuing - another pain. But this is the price you pay for booking cheap tickets - you have to put up with some inconvenience.

But there was an upside: it turned out there were about forty or fifty of us who were either New Zealanders or Brits, travelling the whole way to London, so naturally we gravitated together at the check-in queues. Two or three of this cohort had done the trip before, so their knowledge and experience was much appreciated, as the airline itself told us very little about what was going on. And even when I was given information, it turned out to be wrong.

The flight from Haikou to Changsha was internal, so it was, technically, a domestic flight, even though it was part of the international journey I'd booked. So, after checking in I was told to go round the corner to the domestic departure gate and security screening area, which I did, only to be turned away and told to go to international departures because I was travelling to London. Off upstairs I trundled, to international departures, only to be turned away again and be told to go back downstairs to domestic. It was turning into a game of Chinese Checkins, only I was losing.

Haikou Meilan International, Terminal 2 Departures. It was a seething mass of humanity when I was there

I found an airport official, a young lady who listened politely and carefully to my dilemma, checked my boarding pass, then engaged Google translate on her phone to tell me to go to international departures. I still had at least three hours before departure so I wasn't losing my cool yet. I equally politely told her phone my story again, and she said I was to follow her. I followed, relieved at last that I was in official hands.

But no. After being given more incorrect information at two other counters, we finally ended up at the first class check-in, and my hopes soared as I thought maybe that she was going to arrange an upgrade by way of compensation for all the messing about. Alas no. It was just that the first class check-in guy wasn't doing anything, and seemed like a prime target. He told us to go to where I was first sent: Domestic Departures. This time though I had my Chinese escort, and she smoothed my passage through the gate with no problems at all.

I had learned three ways of saying 'thank you' in Chinese, one basic, one more polite, and one that is used only in circumstances of extreme gratitude. This was the one I used now, giving an awkward bow at the same time. 'Fēicháng gǎnxiè nín,' I said, haltingly. I don't know which of us blushed more, but she smiled, hopefully understanding what I'd said. On the other hand, I might have just intimated that I'd like to go home and meet her sister, so I figured I should beat a retreat through security as quickly as possible.

The train to London; my only first class experience

Fast forward, and a month later, having successfully achieved all I wanted to do in England, I headed back to Heathrow, firstly taking a train from Liverpool to London Euston. This turned out to be the highlight of my trip, partly because I treated myself to a first class ticket, and secondly - because the journey was delayed by an hour and twenty minutes - I received a full refund on the fare. Score! So that was the journey, plus lunch with wine(s), for free. Not complaining, and I still made it to Heathrow with two hours to spare.

So then I was back on Hainan Airlines doing the reverse journey. Once again there was a cohort of about forty English and Kiwis, and once again some of them (I can say 'us' now that I'd done the journey one way at least), were able to provide valuable knowledge of what to expect. But a bonus for me was making the acquaintance of a thirty-something hipster from England called Jack. We hared a row of seats from London to China, then were split up for the remaining flights, but at Changsha and Haikou we also shared the endurance of waiting in airports in the early hours of the morning, with nothing open and the temperature at 31 degrees Celsius. We'd have killed for a cold lager.

Jack was headed to New Zealand for a campervan holiday (in winter, I know!), so I did what I could to help him plan his journey, and to manage his expectations. And no, at no stage did I shout 'Hi Jack!' during the flight.

With Jack at 2.30 in the morning, at Haikou,
looking far happier than we should be

I enjoyed his company though, and I'm always pleased to help anyone who's visiting Aotearoa/New Zealand.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. I'm not going to review the airline particularly, they're all much of a muchness unless you're flying business or first class. Ultimately, in third class it really is just a test of endurance, especially on long-haul flights of eleven hours or more. They should include it in Iron Man challenges: running, cycling, and sitting on a plane for 12 hours.

Travelling via China was a bit of a mission, but at least I didn't get arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers for having anti-Trump memes on my phone. It was worth the journey to avoid that. Oh, and they did give me more than one beer, so 'Fēicháng gǎnxiè nín' Hainan Airlines!