Helen van Berkel flies Air New Zealand Flight 27 Houston to Auckland.
The plane: A Boeing 787.
The airport experience: After a late-arriving flight from New York into Houston — and expecting to have to pick up baggage before checking in — it was a race for me and other connecting passengers as we "excuse me, excuse me-d" and clambered over the backs of other disembarking passengers. The required terminal was, naturally, roughly a million miles away and our names were being called as our straining lungs and red faces arrived at check-in. I left the gate staff on the phone chasing our luggage, said a little prayer for my abandoned suitcase and boarded.
My seat: 60F — right next to the aft loos.
Fellow passengers: Next to me were utterly charming and perfectly behaved children, a young brother and sister flying alone to Christchurch. In front were badly behaved grown-ups, determined seat-recliners who needed repeated reminders to keep it upright during takeoff, food service and landing.
