Since 2019, when the last Women’s World Cup occurred, a lot has changed. There was, of course, a global pandemic which halted travel, disrupted sports and entertainment, and caused some people to start washing their hands for the first time. And while all of that was going on, the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) was still battling for equal pay after having outsold the U.S. men in ticket sales and merchandising for the last eight years. The popularity of women’s soccer (or as some call it football) had grown exponentially. The national team, and even women’s league teams across the U.S. were playing to sold out crowds. But while progress has been made in many areas, there are always reminders that there is still a long way to go.
Last year, the men’s World Cup took place in Qatar. 7000 flights arrived in Doha for the event. For the women? Crickets. Not a single airline modified their usual schedule to accommodate an event that was selling out games six months in advance. United, Delta, and American all announced they would be launching service to New Zealand out of Los Angeles . . . starting in October — two months after the World Cup ends. Australia and New Zealand, the cohosts of the event are currently in winter, and were already at a reduced schedule. If one wanted to go to New Zealand, for example, there are only three cities in North America that have regularly scheduled nonstop service. If you wanted to buy a one-way ticket on Air New Zealand, you would be paying $12,000 for the privilege.
Ah, but that shouldn’t matter to the likes of Bricole (everyone’s favorite celebrity couple). They fly standby, you might think. Ideally, yes. Practically, no. With $12,000 tickets being a thing, fans, media, and support staff were looking to get to New Zealand by other means. That could mean Hawaii, Fiji, or Tahiti. What we thought were excellent backup options were all sold out — as in you couldn’t even buy a ticket much less try to go standby. It was only by matter of luck and desperation that we were able to buy the last two seats on Air Tahiti Nui. It’s actually rather fortunate because we came very close to trying to get to New Zealand by way of Japan and New Caledonia — a journey that would have taken us four days to get to Auckland. With virtually no seats available heading anywhere in a generally south and westerly direction from the United States, the American carriers missed a huge opportunity to meet the demand. To illustrate the absurdity and lack of planning, a flight search engine I was using (after having bought our tickets) was telling me that the only seats I could buy to get to Auckland involved first flying to either Singapore or Qatar followed by a flight to Australia, and then to New Zealand…for about $5000 in economy seats.
So as I sat there in seat 41K, four hours into a packed flight to Tahiti with the person in front of me fully reclined into my lap and a man coughing up a lung nearby, it was hard to believe that we were incredibly lucky to be here. I do admit, it was not the most relaxing of evenings at LAX. We were not expecting so much traffic on a Tuesday night. Jumping out of our Lyft in haste, I forgot my camera bag. Luckily, due to the traffic, I was able to catch back up to the vehicle and simply open the door and grab it. It did however set the tone for the rest of the night. We were the last to check in at the counter, just 45 minutes prior to an international departure, a new record for us I think.
It was an eight hour flight to Papeete on Tahiti, with us landing around 5am. We had a couple hours to kill after dealing with an unnecessarily hostile security screening that involved removing every single lens and camera from my bag. Inside the terminal, it was interesting to see a fair amount of people sporting national team jerseys or other merch. We were after all in Tahiti. I myself was wearing a Christen Press t-shirt, for which I received a few compliments. She is one of many players who weren’t called up to this particular World Cup due to injury, and I suspect her talents will be missed. We finally boarded our next Air Tahiti Nui flight, blocked for another six hours to Auckland, which the gate agents kept pronouncing as “Oakland.” We departed late because the airport was “very busy,” meaning a single Air France plane had pushed just before us. We were eventually on our way, enjoying some fleeting moments of sleep interspersed with neck pain and leg cramps.
The flight took longer than expected turning our long day into an even longer one. Fortunately, we did eventually land in Auckland and had a fairly stress-free trip through customs which emptied into a fairly large themed area for the World Cup. The arrivals hall was decked out like a football pitch. In short order, Mr. Poopers (Greg to some) and Joelle (Joelle to most) who had arrived earlier, came to pick us up in the rental car.
It was about an hour drive from the airport to Piha on the west coast. We have a very scenic vista from our Air BnB. It is rather overcast, but perhaps this is what is typical for New Zealand this time of year.
With half of us jet lagged and disoriented, perhaps it is best to simply end this post and start anew once we have regrouped and established our next plan of action.
passports & pepto bismol 