Airport hotels should be used to late arrivals and disrupted travellers, says Adele Thurlow
Arriving back into New Zealand from Qatar at 1.30am alongside two other international flights, it’s hard to imagine the arrivals terminal ever being empty. Hundreds of tired passengers waited listlessly at the luggage carousels as suitcases sidled past intermittently. Immigration officers, methodically stamping declaration forms and scanning bags, dealt with the queues as efficiently as they could.
More than an hour after landing, I was finally free to make the short stroll across to the Novotel Auckland Airport, ready to shower away the residue of a long-haul flight and collapse into a plush bed for some very overdue sleep.
With a domestic flight departing at 8am, I would only have a narrow window of time at the hotel but I deemed it necessary, given the glaring lack of facilities at the airport for passengers arriving overnight but not connecting to domestic flights until daytime.
When I phoned a month prior to make a reservation, I was informed that Novotel Auckland Airport’s short-stay offering ceased during Covid and is yet to be reinstated. Rather than spend the night on the airport floor, I opted to pay (more than $300) for a full day reservation to ensure I had a few hours of comfort. Knowing my flight arrived in the wee hours of the morning, I ensured my reservation began on the date of the preceding day and requesting a note be added to the booking to inform the hotel of my very late arrival.