separately later once they were completed. Organising the publication of her book, re-titled Alone in the Sky took two years. She returned to New Zealand in late 1979, flying partway on the Concorde, thanks to the generosity of the National Bank which invited her to open a new branch in her home country. She remained for the summer, doing promotional work for Alone in the Sky. After spending the northern summer in Tenerife, Batten was in Australia in November 1980 for the 60th anniversary of the founding of Qantas. While there, her solo record for the England-Australia flight was broken by Judith Chisholm, an airline pilot, who flew a Cessna Centurion to achieve the feat. She then flew to Auckland on 25 November, breaking Batten's solo record for the England-New Zealand flight as well. As a courtesy, Qantas flew Batten on a Boeing 747 to Auckland to greet Chisholm. During the flight, made while Chisholm crossing the Tasman Sea, the two briefly spoke via radio. Batten publicly congratulated Chisholm for breaking her longstanding records, noting that her own flight was made "as a pioneer" and it could not be compared to Chisholm's. According to friends she later complained of the technological advantage that made the feat much easier to achieve. She was back in Tenerife in early 1981, her focus now on a Concorde return flight between England and New Zealand, being organised by Pooley to commemorate the 45th anniversary of her record flight of 1936. Scheduled to depart London in October with Batten as the guest of honour, tickets cost £3,450. She was engaged in publicity events to help ticket sales, one of which was a ceremony at Luton Airport where Britannia Airways named one of its Boeing 737 aircraft after her. Despite Batten's urging and berating of Pooley, the Concorde flight was cancelled in early October due to poor sales, much to her disappointment. Final years and death In the spring of 1982, Batten sold her apartment in Tenerife. By this time, her neighbours found her increasingly eccentric and noted that she would go to extreme lengths to avoid personal interaction. Much of her personal papers and memorabilia, including her memoirs, were packaged into a suitcase and consigned to Britannia Airways at Luton Airport for her later collection. She was in England in August, having spent some of the previous weeks in Gibraltar. Having caught up with Pooley,