CEO Message - 6 May 2011

A week on and I feel a world away from Auckland, on nearly every level.

This is definitely the most disconnected I have been from Air New Zealand in the eight and a half years since I joined, especially when you consider I have been connected every day with Air New Zealand in one way or another since I became CEO five and a half years ago. Through email, text messaging, mobile phone, Facebook and internet communications I have tried to be as accessible as possible on a daily basis to Air New Zealanders, customers and the New Zealand public. So being in an environment with sporadic text messaging access, no reliable mobile phone voice coverage and limited internet access takes some getting used to! I have a satellite phone for emergencies but fortunately that hasn't rung yet and downloading this message will be its first use since I left home.

The people, the Sherpa villages and the hygiene conditions also remind you just how far away from home you are. The roads and pathways are all dirt and rocks and shared by trekkers like us, local village people, porters, live stock, yaks and pets. There is yak dung everywhere and when it rains it becomes a real mess! Walls and homes are all made from stone with most fireplaces burning dried yak dung for fuel and with no chimneys the smoke largely circulates inside the home. Few houses have a shower and you often see people washing in a basin outside their houses. As for toilets - most are outdoors, many are dry pits and some have a water race running below. If you’re lucky, an occasional few have seats and you’re even luckier to find one that flushes.

For most of us the conditions are close to what we would consider medieval, with the exception of electricity, albeit used very sparingly given how expensive it is. It’s easy to feel guilty staying in tea houses, which although basic, are generally clean, 50% have had flushing toilets and every three or four days you even come across a shower.

But despite the incredibly basic conditions and the hardship, the Sherpa people are warm, engaging, have the most wicked sense of humour and never seem short of a smile for foreigners passing through their place. I find it quite humbling as I walk along with a meagre 10kg pack on my back (the other 15kgs being on a yak) and pass a Jandals-wearing porter half my size carrying up to 80kgs on his back secured only by a head band, but still happy to engage with a smile and the local greeting of "Namaste". They are an amazing people with huge hearts!!

There have certainly been some memorable moments since I last wrote. The flight we boarded just after I sent my last update was spectacular up to Lukla, an incredibly short runway at 9,500 ft, with a steep uphill gradient to help bring you a stop. Our pilot landed a little too far along the runway and had to slam it down hard, the result of which the door wouldn't open to let us out, so we ended up crawling into the cargo hold and out through the cargo door. Not really a big deal for us, but the look on the passengers’ faces waiting to board the same aircraft for the return journey was priceless! Somehow the crew managed to coax them on board through the Cargo door for a close to on-time departure.

A major highlight was my first glimpse of Everest while in a village called Namche Bazar at an altitude of 11,500 ft. There was high cloud cover when we arrived in the afternoon, but we woke up to a glorious sunrise with only a few scattered clouds and so I hiked up to a lookout with Leeanne Langridge just as the cloud cleared the summit of Everest - it truly did take our breath away, a very special moment!

One of the goals of our team has been to ensure we leave a little more than we take from this trip. We can do this in many ways; Liza (a member of our Green Team) has been picking up rubbish along the way and while this may sound an easy task, when just putting one foot in front of the other can be a challenge in this thin air, bending over to pick something up uses up much of your precious oxygen. Many of the team have gifts for the local children - little toys, educational games, toothbrushes and toothpaste. We buy as much as possible in the local villages and try and support the local communities.

But the major project which our team leader Mike Allsop has worked on for many months is a gift to the local monastery in a village called Pangboche. The monastery had a skull and a hand purporting to be authentic yeti remains, which tourists would come to see and make a donation in support of the monastery. Unfortunately some years ago the hand and skull were stolen, depriving the monastery of this precious income stream. So Mike embarked on a worldwide campaign for the return of the yeti hand and has been interviewed by news organizations around the world and is following some leads. At the same time, and with the support of Sir Richard Taylor and Weta Workshops, we brought with us identical replicas of the yeti hand and skull to gift to the Pangboche monastery in the hope we could assist them to recreate this much needed revenue stream.

The ceremony where Mike presented the hand and skull to the Lama and committee at the Pangboche monastery was a special moment and the delight on the faces of the Monastery officials and assembled locals was priceless. It was clear we had truly touched their hearts and left an enduring and positive contribution in their community. That same morning the team visited Lama Goese at his home and were each individually blessed for our journey ahead. Lama Goese is one of those people who exudes an aura of spirituality, has a great presence and a voice that sounds amazing even though I didn't understand a word of Tibetan. To top it off he has the most infectious of laughs - one of those laughs that engulfs his whole face and body. At the end of our visit he asked me to stay behind as he wanted to teach me a personal mantra to ensure I lived a long life and to help ensure I left a positive footprint on the planet - I found the whole experience very moving!

Today is my birthday and I feel incredibly lucky to be celebrating it here at Gorek Shep almost 17,000 ft above sea level, alongside 15 fabulous Air New Zealanders and four amazing new Sherpa friends.

Tomorrow, fingers crossed, we'll be at Everest Base Camp.

As a team we’ve been keeping a blog about the trip, which you can seehttp://airnzeverestteam2011.blogspot.com/ if you’d like to read more.