After months and months of planning and an arduous overnight 8 hour flight from Auckland, my family and I landed at Honolulu airport in the early hours of Hawaii’s Saturday morning.

Unfortunately I didn’t take my own advice and refer to the SeatGuru app when choosing our seats on this plane.

Because Ethan wanted to sit at the window, I was relegated to the aisle seat, which offered additional leg room but a screen on a retractable arm as there was no seat in front of mine. The first row in our cabin boasted only two seats, and I remarked to Christian about how envious I was about the woman in the row who was travelling solo and didn’t have an accompanying passenger in her neighbouring but vacant seat. Bah, humbug.

Upon finding our seats, we were confused as to why there was no screen available in the aisle seat, as we had paid for The Works Deluxe package electing to fly in the most comfortable cattle class option. I then observed an attendant assisting my aisle neighbour, whose seat also did not have a passenger in front, but a wall separating our cabin from the Business Class cabin ahead.

He explained that the screen could be retracted and released from its partition by pushing down on a lever. As he explained this, I looked down to my left and observed a latch, pushing down hard to see if I could release the screen. I felt I had pushed with some force and without any luck, I gave up and assumed that the attendant, who had spoken to all others who were seated in the rows with retractable screens would surely come over before takeoff and go through the same procedure with me, as he had all of the others.

Alas – I was wrong. He started to walk down the aisle toward me and as he did so, I looked towards him and smiled. He looked down his nose at me and without missing a beat, sashayed further down the aisle to assist a colleague to ensure the rear doors were securely fastened. To say I was surprised would be a lie. Being a heavily tattooed person, quite often I am treated differently to your average Joe. People assume I do drugs, drink heavily, am generally a bad or unsavoury person…because I choose to adorn my body with art that I think is beautiful and have a penchant for body modification. First of all, if you think this? You’ve got screws loose. This is not 1950 and what I choose to do with my body is my business. I am sick to death of people remarking on my hair, clothes, body mods and appearance, like by simply existing I am asking for validation.

So, if you’re reading this? Just know, I’m not. I don’t need your validation. I’ve grown into a place where I really like myself and understand I have faults and flaws and am working on those, however I do not need you to comment on or remind me of aforementioned faults and flaws. Mind your own goddamn business.

And as for you (let’s call him Steve) Steve, air steward of Air New Zealand – you suck. Thanks for making me feel less than human by electing to ignore the basic requirements of your job, to make your guests comfortable and assist them where necessary. Cheers! Luckily for me however, one of his colleagues did ask if I had been shown how to use the retractable screen and when I said  hadn’t took great care to show me in detail how to use the screen and let me know that the screens would need to be placed away during takeoff.

With that out of the way, I’d like to explain why I didn’t enjoy flying with Air New Zealand in the slightest.

Firstly, as a heavier person with a big bum, I detest planes with narrow seats. Ironically, New Zealand’s budget airline JetStar offers more comfortable seating than the perceived ‘better value’ national airline. I prefer to fly JetStar intercity while in New Zealand, for the simple fact that the seats are wider and the belts stretch easily across my wide torso.

I sat down in my chair and groaned. Not only was the seat narrow, but the armrests did not lift, meaning my thighs spewed out underneath the hardened plastic arms. Before you roll your eyes and say to yourself, ‘she should just lose some weight so she can fit in the seat our buy two seats if necessary’ – I get it. But in this case, even if I had purchased the neighbouring seat, I wouldn’t have been able to lift the armrest, so that argument is moot.

I reclined my seat a wee bit, so as not to disturb the person sitting behind me who was busily typing away on a laptop placed on their tray table – I try to be considerate when flying because I get super irritated when the person in front of me comes flying backwards halfway into my seat and I have to struggle to use my personal screen. I was able to stretch my legs out and sit very low in the seat, which somewhat replicated lying down…but not really.

So, in short? The flight sucked. I have a return flight on Air New Zealand to look forward to on the way home from Honolulu to Auckland so I’m grateful for the fact that it’s only eight hours. Should I ever return to Oahu, I will do so on a Hawaiian Airlines flight!

Charli x