Peeling off to Freedom and bananas

By MONIQUE DEVEREUX

It was not the typical no-frills air experience. Inflight music came from a live jazzband.

Also provided were sunflowers, free water, bananas and jellybeans - yellow ones, of course. Freedom's colour.

And only a few on board were genuine budget travellers.

Many of those who found themselves on Freedom Air's first domestic flight yesterday morning had first booked on Qantas New Zealand before its collapse 11 days ago.

Then they were booked on one of Air New Zealand's extra services put on to clear the backlog of Qantas passengers.

When that flight was cancelled because of a computer malfunction, they were transferred to Freedom.

They were not the only Air New Zealand passengers surprised to find themselves on the new cut-price carrier.

Others were transferred later in the day when one of the parent company's aircraft was grounded with pressurisation problems.

The transferred passengers boosted the numbers on the Freedom flights from handfuls to planefuls.

Only 350 seats were booked on all of Freedom's six inaugural flights between Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

Two of the six legs had fewer than 10 bookings.

The first flight out of Auckland was filled with more than the transferred Qantas NZ and Air NZ passengers. Freedom Air and Air New Zealand representatives were along for the ride, with a three-piece jazz band, news reporters and 10 former Qantas staff doing promotional work for Freedom.

"I was just planning to get to Wellington for a bit cheaper than normal," said Freedom passenger Ness Khan as the plane took off.

"I didn't realise I'd be flying with a circus."

He was not the only one - MPs Richard Prebble and Nandor Tanczos also found themselves on the flight, courtesy of the Air NZ plane's computer malfunction.

The lack of breakfast, tea and coffee and business-class seating did not worry Mr Prebble.

"I don't fly business class anyway. It's a drain on the taxpayer."

When it was suggested that MPs might fly Freedom permanently, the Act leader laughed. "I don't know about that."

Businessmen who joined the flight from Christchurch to Wellington happily calculated a saving of $800 on their usual fares.

Roxanne Ward, of Christchurch - travelling with her 6-week-old baby Caleb - was pleased with the "cheap and cheerful" service that flew them to Wellington at the last minute.

"I don't like that bland, boring airline food anyway."

Although numbers of booked passengers were low, Freedom's chief executive, Wayne Dodge, said the response to the new service had been fantastic.

Freedom, he said, would be a permanent option for domestic travellers, although he could not confirm that return fares would remain at this month's price of $150 for Auckland to Wellington and $178 for Auckland to Christchurch.

"We are here to be competitive, however ... to offer the no frills passengers are obviously looking for."

Freedom will add a third plane to the fleet today and expects to have the lease of a fourth plane finalised within weeks.