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Written by Seuamuli Des Bentin
Monday, 30 June 2008
The Polynesian Blue Flight DJ 91 was roaring down the runway at Auckland airport at exactly 0600 Hours last Friday morning, just like it said it would on my ticket, and I was already half asleep, when the lady in the seat behind me said, “Gosh this airplane is taking a long time to take off!” According to published data about the Boeing 737-800, it has a required take off distance of 2,100 meters and maximum take off weight of 79,015 kilograms. There is a whole lot of other interesting stuff about the Boeing 737-800 aircraft, such as the ones used by Polynesian Blue, but what immediately springs to mind during takeoff when you hear someone say that the plane is taking a bloody long time to get off the ground is aircraft gross weight, indicated airspeed, air density and wind direction as well as minor details like where the nearest emergency exit is located, whether you have got clean knickers on, and how much runway is there to play with just before the pilot hits “decision speed” and aborts. I looked out the window just as the Auckland Airport tower came into view and Polynesian Blue Flight DJ 91 bound for Apia was off the ground and groovin’. But I couldn’t go back to sleep after that because I was reminded of a conversation I had earlier that morning with a lady who was on the same flight with me coming back to Samoa. It was her first trip to New Zealand and had asked if she could join me when boarding because she was uncertain of what was required at Gate 8 where we were to board from. I was keen to help but our seats were in different thirds of the aircraft and we had to board separately. But while waiting to board, she happened to inform me that she had arrived at check in with luggage and stuff that weighed way over the allowed 20 kilograms per passenger. We had all been informed that there was no excess luggage allowed because we had an almost full flight, but my new friend proudly claimed that the Samoan lady at Check In was – are you ready for this? - her aunt’s husband’s brother’s daughter, and that this relative had made sure that she did not have to leave any of her stuff behind that was over the allowed weight. I did not take too much notice of what I thought at the time to be a preposterous claim because I was and still am convinced that the “good old days” when rules were only for palagi and Samoans without relatives in high places or employed by Polynesian, were a thing of the past. How can you fiddle the weights so that your rellies, friends or those bearing lunch money, can have their overweight luggage loaded on to the plane without paying for it? How can you keep track of the total luggage weight if there was more than one check in operator involved in this practice? There may be safeguards in place for safety reasons due to people being easily influenced by money, ego or other reasons, to abandon safety guidelines such as keeping to allowed luggage weights on international flights, but there is nothing like a palagi passenger in the seat behind you on your international flight commenting on how long it was taking for the aircraft to get off the ground, to get an insomniac columnist to clap on the sunnies and fall asleep, dreaming of free drinks and seats in the “smoking” section of yesteryears planes. After trying to think of how to fit this incident into today’s half-a-page-of-nonsense of course! For those who are genuinely interested, I was in Napier for my son Dylan’s twenty first birthday. Rather tropical after a four year absence for this lad but I could report that a wonderful time was enjoyed by all and I genuinely did try and find some of the people who were sent there on apple picking contracts, but the nice taxi driver (everybody had to leave their cars at home and traveled by taxi to and from the birthday party for safety reasons: Maria made sure of that!) from Faleapuna – now living in Hastings – told me that they had all returned to Samoa a few weeks earlier. I was a bit disappointed because I thought that there might be a nice story about how these guys were coping in the foreign environments and culture they had found themselves in, other than the depressing stories we get here of being deported home because of drunken behavior and fighting. Did they ever appoint a something-or-other person to keep an eye on these guys while they were in Aotearoa New Zealand? They might have a nice story about the pickers to warm the cockles on a Hawkes Bay winter’s eve. I thumped back down to reality on arrival with a reported verbal confrontation between Melissa and some of the village taulelea who told her that she was just a nofo tane who was not of this village and should therefore serve them beer regardless of what time it was whenever they came to the shop. Rather sad don’t you think? It is the sort of mentality that will guarantee families will never coexist in harmony because some jerk looks at his sister-in-law as a nofo tane and therefore does not deserve respect. Look around you and see if people in your village or family treat the nofo tane the same way they do blood relatives. Is this another unfortunate part of our ‘culture’ that we should be looking at to see if it couldn’t be changed? What is a nofo tane if she isn’t family? Have nice one folks! Comments (1) Subscribe to this comment's feed ummm.... written by V.Patu, June 30, 2008 Interesting!!! Write comment Name Email Title Comment
Last Updated ( Monday, 30 June 2008 )

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