{"id":604812,"date":"2026-09-19T00:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T00:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/604812\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T00:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T00:46:09","slug":"aue-air-new-zealand-crew-perform-tutira-mai-nga-iwi-at-33000-feet-to-celebrate-maori-language-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/604812\/","title":{"rendered":"Au\u0113! Air New Zealand crew perform T\u016btira Mai Ng\u0101 Iwi at 33,000 feet to celebrate M\u0101ori Language Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AirAir New Zealand staff performing on the flight from Rarotonga to New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Passengers could be heard singing with the crew. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was unexpected,\u201d Singleton told the Herald.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything was as normal, and then about two or three hours in, they announced that to celebrate M\u0101ori Language Week, they had an all M\u0101ori crew on board and that they were going to do some waiata.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d actually already nipped down the back and used the bathroom and seen one of the guys with his guitar, and I went, oh, that\u2019s a bit of fun, you know, thinking he was just bringing his guitar for his trip to Raro for the day – but no, they did four beautiful songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\" Megan Singleton, travel content creator and radio correspondent.<\/p>\n

Singleton said the crew explained what M\u0101ori Language Week was all about and then launched into T\u016btira Mai Ng\u0101 Iwi.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just so much fun,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time they\u2019d finished, we were all rocking along. It was really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singleton\u2019s videos have been viewed more than a million times, and thousands of people have commented.<\/p>\n

Air New Zealand wrote: \u201cProud of our amazing crew honouring Te Wiki o te Reo M\u0101ori on board. Thanks for sharing Megan.\u201d<\/p>\n

A former Air New Zealand cabin crew member said she was \u201cso proud\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine your pax [passengers] flying home to the land of the long white cloud and hearing this. This is that moment when you know you \u2018feel\u2019 home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan Air New Zealand do this every flight? Please and thank you,\u201d said someone else. <\/p>\n

Another person wrote: \u201cCore childhood memories singing this song. Never leaves your bones regardless of how far from home you end up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI sang along from my bedroom,\u201d said another. <\/p>\n

An Air New Zealand spokesperson said the performance was organised by the crew.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur crew pulled together a celebration of Te Wiki o te Re M\u0101ori on board a return flight to Rarotonga this week, and it\u2019s been lovely to see passengers filming and uploading their content,\u201d she told the Herald.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Air New Zealand staff performing on the flight from Rarotonga to New Zealand. Passengers could be heard singing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[109957,68,4376,1975,135486,45719,177,298098,14900,13574,5418,2219,42,50521,776,195598,2720,9381,117,43,86229,29459,24265,6777,1516,165,61,40,38,41,39,29863,28525,416,12901,5143,686,26156,102,80],"class_list":["post-604812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-109957","tag-air","tag-airline","tag-at","tag-au","tag-cabin","tag-celebrate","tag-commending","tag-crew","tag-efforts","tag-feet","tag-gone","tag-headlines","tag-iwi","tag-language","tag-mai","tag-mori","tag-musical","tag-new","tag-news","tag-ng","tag-passengers","tag-perform","tag-performance","tag-staff","tag-their","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-treating","tag-ttira","tag-video","tag-viewers","tag-viral","tag-week","tag-wiki","tag-with","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}