Editorial: Air travel still safer than roads

The taxi-trip from Auckland's domestic terminal to the CBD took 55 minutes. Photo / APN

An early morning flight to Auckland got off to a eerie start on Wednesday.

The chap who drew window seat next to me was reading The New Zealand Herald with the front page headline: "Faces of Flight 370."

Fifty-four of the 239 people aboard the lost Malaysian jet were staring straight at me.

I took the in-flight safety message quite seriously - 16,000 feet seemed higher than usual.

Yet the flight home was a little more relaxing.

Just before take off the PA system kicked-in with a cabin crew member reminding us to switch our cell phones to flight mode before turning them off. "If your phone doesn't have flight mode, head to your nearest Vodafone dealer and get a new phone."

It was the first of a litany of funnies never before heard in an aeroplane by this writer.

"Make sure you choose the right door for the toilet at rear - the wrong one is a long-drop."

"No we won't play you an advertisement with ladies in bikinis."

"Today's in-flight movie is called Look Out Your Window, followed by Would You Like Tea Or Coffee?"

All mirth aside, the benign turbulence atop the clouds of fluffy-white mashed potato made me think of the lost 239.

The odds you'll die in a place crash are 11 million to one.

The odds you'll die on our roads are 5000 to one.

The flight took 49 minutes at a cost of $415.96 return.

The taxi-trip from Auckland's domestic terminal to the CBD took 55 minutes at a cost of $100.84.

The traffic makes us provincials baulk. And so it should. The deadliest component of air travel is the drive to the airport.