The sinkhole thing is a really long story, and a lot of it is that my boss is an old, eccentric, PhD who has zeroed in on this.

LaGuardia has sinkholes because it's built on a crazy substructure of rotting wooden pilings and metal framework.

We don't expect them to pay us, my boss (remember, 70 year old Kiwi) thinks you can just call airports up and get on the runway. To be entirely fair, if a sinkhole opened up at Invercargill airport, we could be on the runway tomorrow, and probably next week at Christchurch. He just doesn't realize that NYC is not the South Island.

I live in Australia and Australia is not New Zealand... but this sounds exactly like what would happen in rural Australia - people in small towns still do handshake deals because you know and trust most people in town.

Not related to business deals but a family member was flying rurally in Australia maybe 15 years ago and joked about stabbing the pilot with a 4cm nail file. The airport security guy had a good laugh too.