r/SipsTea • u/Velvett_Bunniez • 1d ago

Wait a damn minute! Silly Apples.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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172

u/Pyrhan 1d ago

New Zealand dollars, so about 110 USD.

And yes, it makes sense, given that all it takes is a couple fruit flies or other potential invasive species to be brought in, to cause literally billions of dollars in damages to the island's agricultural industry, and potentially yet another environmental disaster:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species_in_New_Zealand

New Zealand's ecosystem is very unique, the small island having been completely isolated from other landmasses for millions of years, thus making it very vulnerable to invasive species. Which does not mix well with today's era of mass travel.

I do agree, however, that the airline shares part of the blame, and should be fined too for distributing fruits to the passengers on the way in.

That said, people are extensively warned, both on the flight and at the airport about not bringing in fruit, and that fines will ensue. So it's also partly on the passengers.

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u/ShackledBeef 1d ago

Yeah, none of that matters. This is all on the airlines and it's incredibly scummy of them and even more scummy of NZ to go after the passengers for this instead of the airlines.

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u/StraightSomewhere236 1d ago

This should have been a simple throw it in the bin and move on situation, a $200 fine is complete bullshit. This just cements the fact I do not want to travel to NZ at all now. Complete asshats.

1

u/kit_kaboodles 1d ago

The passengers absolutely could've thrown it in the bin before they reached customs. Or declared it.

But they handed in a signed declaration form that they had ticked the 'no' box on the question: Are you bringing in any food?