If I have written about this before you will have to excuse my age-related decline. 

One thing I have learned about long-distance travel in my years is the last hop can be the worst. It can be an evaporating driver, traffic congestion, or an odd delay.

Imagine my surprise when last Friday this occurred. 

I landed in Auckland at about 5:30pm from Rotorua. There is a new regional Koru lounge at the airport and after having a very sober isolation I thought I would give the local libations a good going over.

I started with a couple of (de)ciders and sampled some of the buffet to fortify my stomach. The (de)ciders went down very well so I thought I would throw a couple of Gin and Tonics down my throat before my 7:30pm flight. I was feeling pretty good about life and then boarded my plane.

The flight was soon all seated and I busied myself reading Air New Zealand paraphernalia from the seat pocket in front of me. Imagine my surprise when a very embarrassed co-pilot had to make this announcement.

“I am very sorry but I lost my pen on the flight down and I have had to get an Engineer to dismantle the cockpit to find the pen we will be delayed by 30 minutes or so”

Imagine my abject horror at this announcement. It took me screaming back to work a couple of weeks ago. It was all too familiar. I started messaging my Chief on board with some very colorful language.

“WTF”

“Why do we need pens in 2020 to fly planes?”

“Why do we need Aircraft Engineers to find pens?”

“&@^#^&@#^&@”

Eventually, the pen was found and we were able to fly. Unfortunately, I had not counted on this delay and had to wake the passenger beside me to use the facilities on a 30-minute flight. This sparked up a conversation with the comatose passenger beside me and the rest of my flight went swimmingly.

Today I was asked for some feedback on my flight. I shall send them a link. Penless planes what do you think?