Neha Jain: http://newzealandaviationnews.blogspot.com/31

1. Richard Simmons’ Air New Zealand Video Goes Viral

Most regular air travelers tune out when the safety briefing begins, but Air New Zealand is doing anything it can to keep passengers interested — even if that means neon lycra, nudity, celebrities and the company’s chief executive playing the fool.

The latest safety video from the airline, which is majority-owned by the government, features celebrity fitness guru Richard Simmons and the presenter of “The Amazing Race,” Phil Keoghan, and has become an Internet sensation, featuring in the YouTube charts since it was launched this week.

2. Hawaiian Airlines redesigning lobby, changing check-in process

Hawaiian Airlines is redesigning its two ticket lobbies at Honolulu Airport in a $6 million project that will expedite the check-in process and eliminate the need to wait in line for a separate baggage agricultural inspection.

The renovation, which already is under way, is being funded by Hawaiian and is not part of the state's 12-year, $2.3 billion renovation program. It is expected to be completed in June.

Hawaiian, the only occupant of the interisland terminal, is removing its traditional check-in counter in favor of six check-in islands in the middle of the lobbies. Each of the six islands has eight agent-assisted, self-service check-in stations for a total of 48. The stations can be used to check in for all interisland, mainland and international flights.

The check-in stations also provide for the weighing of luggage, payment of any fees for upgrades and other services, and printing of destination luggage tags with assistance from Hawaiian's customer service agents.

When the check-in process is complete, customers will place their checked luggage at one end of a single conveyor belt that is located behind the old check-in counter. That belt will incorporate U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection, baggage security screening and the loading of bags onto the customers' flight. The single belt eliminates the current requirement to have luggage being checked to destinations outside Hawaii pre-screened by USDA before starting the check-in process.

Each lobby also will have two special service desks that will be staffed for special needs or transactions.

"Hawaiian is bringing a dramatic transformation to the check-in process at our Honolulu hub that Hawaii residents and visitors alike will find to be a faster, easier and superior experience," Hawaiian President and CEO Mark Dunkerley said. "We have made it a priority to provide a standard of service that leads the airline industry, and this new lobby design is a quantum leap forward from the traditional check-in process that travelers are used to."

Hawaiian said the new design resulted from two years of industry research and motion studies that it conducted to find a solution to long lines and bottlenecks during busy periods and speed up the check-in process.

"Our design is patterned after one that was recently introduced by Air New Zealand in New Zealand," Hawaiian spokesman Keoni Wagner said. "The company spent two years studying the best practices and doing time and motion studies of the foot traffic in our own terminal in order to come up with the best design."

Even though check-in time will be faster, Wagner said the airline still encourages customers to give themselves ample time to complete the process and to allow for contingencies.

"With the open floor plan, customers have basically 48 options," Wagner said. "They walk up to the first available station and then they're off and running."

In the current configuration, customers have to line up for a particular flight and wait their turn to use anywhere from four to six kiosks for that flight.

"In the new design, any of the 48 is available to you," Wagner said. "It's just a matter of walking up to the first available station."

NZ security chief gives insight into earthquake aftermath
31 Mar 2011
Doug Nancarrow
The head of New Zealand’s aviation security entity provided some insight into the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake when he was in Canberra for a conference this week.
CEO of Aviation Security Service of New Zealand, Mark Everitt, gave delegates some very human perspective:
Japan may have made us pale into insignificance somewhat, but the reality is this. We are a country of four and half million people and we’ve got to pay for a $16 billion earthquake to rebuild one of our cities. So for us the scale of change is probably very much the same.
I’ve got 164 staff at Christchurch airport, two on maternity leave, and I know each and very one of them now very well.
The earthquake hit just before one o’clock, the early shift was just finishing, a very busy time with international departures for us. The terminal was moderately damaged during the course of the earthquake and our base at the airport was quite extensively damaged. There were no injuries apart from one broken elbow of a security officer who was knocked to the ground in the terminal. ..
There was one air traffic controller killed. She was in a café in the city having lunch, the earthquake hit, she ran outside, she spoke to some people on the street, the earthquake stopped, she remembered her cell phone, she went back into the café and the café collapsed…
Of the 164 staff, 16 of them have lost their homes, totally destroyed, while the others have had varying amounts of damage to their houses. And the aftershocks, like a 5.1 last Sunday night, are continuing to erode people’s properties. And some of my staff say to me, Mark I haven’t bothered to claim yet because I’m watching my house being slowly destroyed by the aftershocks…
This is going to be five years. You think about when you smash a glass, you lament about that for a minute, then you clean it up and get on with life. But in Christchurch they don’t. In Christchurch if the sherry glasses are smashed on the floor, they did clean them up, but now they just sweep the glass into the corner, because it’s going to happen again. And they have little hangars of chairs where they put the crockery and favourite things underneath.
And of course some people are still going home at night to no power and no water.
So here is an old English city, with a very sophisticated lifestyle, and this is what they are going through at the moment.
I’ve given my staff earthquake leave. Who would ever think you’d be giving people earthquake leave? We’ve given then six days leave, forcing them away from the airport; and we’re bringing staff from other parts of New Zealand and that’s going to cost us over a million dollars. We are going to do it over a three-week cycle so that every shift gets six days off so they can go home and reflect on the things that they should be doing in their life rather than coming to work. And they have been coming to work. And the wives and partners of our people have been walking to the airport because they don’t feel safe in the home by themselves.
And now that our badly damaged base is half-repaired it’s turned into a community centre. We have campervans for the people whose homes have been destroyed and for those people who want to borrow them to take them away to get out of Christchurch for a little bit of time.
So there are these very simple welfare sorts of things that we are trying to achieve in the short term. But in the long term I don’t know some of the answers. We are obviously using psychologists to help us with that process…
With the airport itself, the priority immediately from the Government …was to get the airport open again. And security was a very big part of that.
There was water under the terminal… but it was decided within a couple of hours that the terminal could operate again, but in the international phase only. There were parts of the domestic terminal that were damaged sufficiently that it wasn’t good to operate from that location.
So we were operating in international mode, so passengers turning up for flights for several days, because Air New Zealand put 747s at Christchurch and just evacuated people for $50. If you wanted to get out of town, there was a 747 at the airport. If you didn’t have $50 you turned up to a community centre and you went on a bus to the airport and they flew you out on a Hercules. If you had 50 bucks and just wanted to go away for a holiday to Auckland for a weekend, you turned up at the airport and there was a 747 every couple of hours…
But these people had to operate in international mode, so we were applying the LAGs regime within a few hours of having a major earthquake, because that was the only way we could keep the terminal operating.
Interestingly enough it took several days for the passengers to say why are we having these international requirements when we’re only hopping on a plane to go to Auckland. It was because the structure couldn’t cope any other way…
So the airport was back up and running, it hasn’t closed since, hasn’t closed during all the aftershocks. The Airways Corporation got themselves going again in terms of the upper airspace management, although I think they are still operating at only about 75 per cent capacity.

3. Air New Zealand launches comedy inflight safety video

Air New Zealand passengers who weren’t scared of flying before certainly will be now after the airline released a cheesy safety film which lampoons the inflight safety protocols which will be overly familiar to anyone who has ever boarded a plane.

Produced by New Zealand based creative agency .99 “Fit to Fly” features US fitness personality Richard Simmons the three minute video depicts lycra clad stewards dancing to Yazz’s hit 1980’s song, ‘The Only Way is Up.”

Mike Tod, Air New Zealand’s marketing and communications manager, explained the unconventional piece: "Safety is paramount and non-negotiable at Air New Zealand, and 'Fit to Fly' will again get our passengers sitting up and taking notice of these important pre-flight messages in an engaging and fun way.

"Simmons' fitness moves will definitely ensure that all eyes are on the safety briefing."

Passengers will be able to ogle Simmonds antics for themselves from May when the dance based fun will be on the airlines inflight entertainment systems.

NEHA JAIN

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