Christchurch Airport — Attraction in Christchurch

We landed at 2am due to delay on our flight from Australia, and felt nothing about friendly. We were so tired like couldn't think the normal way, so when I asked the Spark shop girl for travel sim option, she recommended the $42 sim with 10G data, I took it straight away, right after payment, my husband noticed another one $68 for 50G, I asked to change to that one, the answer was no, even though we didn't leave the counter at all. It was my first time entering NZ, and I knew nothing about the consumer law here. Was it right? Before approaching the customs, we disposed all foods that we hadn't finished on flight. With all clear declaration and carry-on baggage only, I was expecting to get the green lights quickly, in fact we were told by the lady working at beginning of the queue to go through a priority channel. I guess she was trying to help us. Unfortunately, the officer on that counter seemed not happy to see us, said we shouldn't be there, after checking with the lady, he had no smile, no greeting to us, told a group of 5 including my parents in 70s to stay together and asked us to listen to him like questioning suspects. After I told him we only came to have a short trip and binned fruits, he sent us to the X-RAY machine and checked all our bags by himself although there was another officer working in front of the machine, even paused machine when he had to go back to the counter. I have to say his sense was right. He picked out two bags, one of mine and one of my brothers. I knew I had sneakers in mine, I wasn't worried. My sneakers were clear of any soil, cleaner than his face. He took our passports, asked one more time if we packed the bags, and showed us a face of victory. There did appear a lemon in my brother's bag. None of us knew where it came from, my brother didn't remember it even, we were all shocked, but no denying no arguments, we paid the fine of $400. I should have thought he was doing his job and he did a good job,like he had xray in his eyes. However, just because we were the only family with northeast Asian looks off the flight, and, by accident, this officer looked like Asian too but with a poker face, I can't stop thinking that if he didn't find the lemon, he would definitely do something with my clean sneakers. I wouldn't say it was discrimination, or I might think that way without the lemon incident. After all we came out the airport at 3am without feeling welcomed at all, and there was only one taxi waiting outside the terminal, being 5 of us, we had to ask the driver to source another taxi and paid $100 to go 8kms. What a lemon to start our "supposed to be great...

Although I didn't actually sample the facilities and service the airport has to offer, I really feel I have to write and make mention of the wonderfully helpful staff at Christchurch, and how they reunited my son with his new Apple AirPods. He had left them on the plane when he had disembarked his flight from Dubai to Auckland a few days before and, due to Apple's very accurate tracking technology, was able to watch his AirPods' journey around the globe, stopping at one international airport after another. Knowing the number of the aircraft, and therefore what it's next destination would be, one would think that would be enough for Emirates to be able to retrieve the item, but all their ground crew kept doing was asking him for screenshots of the last tracked place. Wasn't really rocket science: get the next destination ahead of time and go pick them up on landing. Perhaps they just couldn't be bothered; certainly seemed that way on my initial call to them, when a rather curt "support agent" asked me why I was calling his number in Auckland as "this is only a sales office". The Emirates' website clear instructions was the reason, I told him, but that didn't wash with him and he simply told me to fill in the on-line form and wait. Anyway, a few days of international jet-setting later, the AirPods turned up in Christchurch! One call to them and I was forwarded to Michelle, who assured me she'd do everything she could to retrieve the AirPods. She called a couple of hours later to say, "job done". The item had actually wedged itself between two seats, which is probably why any cleaning crew wouldn't have retrieved them. Fortunately, there happened to be an engineer in attendance at the time the Christchurch crew member came calling. He dismantled the seat and got them out. That is what you call good service (take note Emirates), so it's a big THANK YOU to Michelle, the aircraft engineer, and whoever else...

i have been asked to remove Beckys name from my review. so here you go all updated now. here is the new review...

Unacceptable Conduct by Airport HR at Burger King

Today at the Burger King inside the airport, I witnessed extremely unprofessional behaviour from a woman who is apparently part of the airport's HR team.

She walked into Burger King acting like she owned the place—cutting in front of the queue and loudly telling the staff, “You need to be busy.” She then called out one of the employees in a rude and dismissive tone, pulling him aside to the pass-through area and giving him a very loud and public telling-off, right in front of customers.

Another woman stood by smiling and announced she was there as a "witness." It was clearly meant to intimidate. The entire conversation could be heard from across the restaurant. The employee looked embarrassed and tried to respond, but she didn’t let him get a word in.

A member of the public finally stepped in and told her the way she was speaking was inappropriate and could be considered a personal grievance. The staff member said this wasn’t the first time she had done this to someone.

Other customers were shocked—some even recorded the incident. For someone from HR—whose job is supposed to be about fairness and support—this was disgraceful. No employee deserves to be spoken to like that, especially not in front of the public.

I hope airport management takes this seriously. It reflected badly on the airport and on...