Current patterns of airline travel have changed significantly. The full-service carriers have had to step up for traveller’s high expectations and attract those who have altered their previous habits, now willing to pay more for premium cabins for the very first time.

We all now realise that the return to International travel will be slow. Whereas we are all looking forward to exploring the world once more, now is the time to be selective in our choices, as travel will be less frequent, more expensive and needs to be carefully considered.

In the restaurant world, much has changed over the past year. While we have mostly been confined to our own borders, and that includes our own four walls at times, restaurants have had to evolve, alter their offering, change their focus, or at worst, close.

I’ve taken only three flights in the past year, all of them domestic short-hops and completely non eventful. That’s a record for me. In the wrong direction. I am really missing the long-haul experience of old. When international flights (beyond New Zealand) become available to Australians, I know the experience will be quite different. But I really hope that one surprisingly special element that I miss, returns.

We all now realise that the return to International travel will be slow. Whereas we are all looking forward to exploring the world once more, now is the time to be selective in our choices, as travel will be less frequent, more expensive and needs to be carefully considered.

Now is the time we begin to hear how different things will be as we begin to travel again. Slowly but surely, we will be advised of the new necessary precautions and procedures we can expect when we finally venture to far flung destinations.

I’m often asked what makes me travel as much as I do. I’m sure it’s not difficult for many of you to understand, but there are some that feel leaving one’s shores is only ever for a rare, special vacation.

Much has been written over the past year about the demise of the most iconic jet of the past century. With air travel now drastically changed forever, sadly, the Boeing 747 has reached the end of its era. The last of the jets will soon reside in the vast airline graveyard in California’s Mojave Desert.

In the last decade there has been an explosion of food-based travel. As our palates became more sophisticated and we are much more aware of food sources, the produce of the seasons and the importance of food sustainability, exploring world cuisines became the primary focus of many overseas adventures.

This year I started learning Japanese. It’s something I have wanted to do for years, and for a long time I worried I would never be able to get a grasp on it. I’m happy to say that I picked up quite a lot during the first term.

Travel addiction is a terrible thing. Withdrawals from it are just as bad as with any other addiction. I feel it right now to my very core. Of late, I have had to calm down and get used to spending all of my time at home base, with no travel plans in the coming months. Of course, this has been essential, unavoidable…and rather unbearable.

We live in an age where fast pace is the norm. Blink and you’ll miss it, is the urgent moniker of today. This especially applies to Marketing. Technology and our limited attention spans are both a marketers dream and their enemy.

This may well be my favourite expression of gratitude. If you travel to Japan, you will hear it repeatedly. For it is uniquely Japanese. 

When you fly up in the pointy end, airlines have a lot to answer for when they don’t deliver to expectations. Passengers who shell out significant funds for an indulgent experience know the drill.

In our ever more complicated and busy worlds, our choices in just about everything have increased tenfold. So, it is also with the aviation industry.

Ahh, the airline lounge. That hallowed place of the privileged, a place to relax, work, drink and eat, away from the masses of the general terminal.