Kiwi Flyer

Not sure what the logic of allowing on line check in (OLCI) and print your own boarding pass (PYOBP) at time of booking (or any time subsequently) for domestic flights was last year, but from my perspective as an elite pax it is NOT working.

I used to always get aisle or window seats and nearly always middle seat blocked if travelling by myself. On all a/c type except ATR I'd get a forward seat, and a nice rear seat on the ATR (boarding is at the rear).

Since then my seating on NZ domestic has been much more erratic. I almost never get a blocked middle seat, and today even got allocated a middle seat Of course despite checking in at airport early I was unable to improve my position because so many passengers had OLCI'ed. (Note I was unable to OLCI myself because it is part of an international itinerary.)

Further, I've noticed more often than not there is a slight delay in departing while waiting on passengers who OLCI'ed but didn't turn up to the gate on time

I hope NZ reviews and gets rid of this feature.

Blackcloud

I totally agree with you on this. As NZ prevents a lot of people from OLCI due to its restrictions and the ridiculous timing I have noticed that when travelling for business with purchase no more than a week's notice that I get total crap seats offered. I have written a complaint but it seems that I am a lone voice in the wilderness. So I encourage more people to get NZ to review this.
I prefer the QF method of seat allocation the day before then opening up OCLI allowing elites access to the better seats.

Kiwi Flyer

The last 4 flights in a row have all had multiple pages for multiple pax failing to show up 2 out of those 4 left late as a result.

kiwicounter

Maybe a day of departure 'recheckin requirement' (sort of defeats OLCI purpose though) like a text to a certain NZ number with your booking reference or something easy like that.

Kiwi Flyer

Limit OLCI to day of departure is fairly standard (some airlines use 24/48 hours instead) and there is less risk for NZ of pax failing to show up. That also means only those booking or changing flights last minute might get disadvantaged in seat selection.

It will be interesting to see what I get for an upcoming full Y domestic sector (again part of international itinerary so unable to OLCI). I really hope that does not get a bad seat too.

cavemanzk

I think even if they put barcode scanners at the door so that ppl have have used OLCI can let NZ know that they are now inside the building and to acount for them.

kiwicounter

Hmm. QF is 24 hours. But day of departure for some early flights mightn't be that easy, some people might be so obsessed with their seating they stay up until 12:01 before dashing off to the airport for an early morning flight - hopefully you get a good seat on your next domestic flight!

Quokka

I really really like the feature. The ability to PYOBP for NZ domestic flights any time between booking and flight is a great differentiator for Air NZ.

It makes using Air NZ more attractive to me. It has the potential to save Air NZ money via cost savings. It even has the potential to generate additional revenues for Air NZ in interesting ways.

It's very forward thinking. I.e. I don't have to wait till the very day of travel to print out my tickets with seat assignments for a train in Europe, WhyTF should I have to wait to print out my domestic airline boarding pass?

If there are bugs or other issues in the system, then those should be addressed, but that doesn't require tossing the feature.


The fix for this would seem to be simply enable pax to do self Online Seat Assignment [and Changes] anytime from booking on for the NZ domestic flight segments part of international itineraries.


"Erratic" is not a precise enough description of an issue to really enable someone to address it ...

If you're losing an open middle seat next to you because the flights are very full, well good for Air NZ. If you're losing an open seat next to you because of the way the Air NZ seat selection UI works, then that's either a bug or feature depending on your viewpoint. To me, I see a bug. From what I've seen, the seat selection UI seems to force pax flying together on the same PNR to sit next to each other. That can force people into middle seats even if the flight isn't full. I'd like to see this fixed, if it hasn't been already.


Even before OLCI, getting pax on domestic NZ flights seemed something akin to herding kittens (sheep?). The number of pax you hear paged to flights for air NZ domestic flights is annoying high, however far from all of them are OLCI pax who didn't show up to the airport at all.

Still the solution here isn't to kill OLCI/early PYOBP, or to install scanners, etc. The solution here is simply fly the flights on schedule. [When was the last time you had a concert or movie or European train departure held up because you were late or decided not to go?] If pax book a ticket, OLCI and PYOBP and don't bother showing up to the airport, well Air NZ has their money and can and should keep it. If they show up later and want to fly [ride the train/ see a movie or concert] they can buy another ticket.

Also the delays I've seen have indeed been slight, however the flights still more often than not seem to still make their arrivals time. Personally I don't care about a delay in departing if I still get to my destination more or less on time.



I hope NZ reviews the lessons learned and improves this feature, not get rid of it.

Kiwi Flyer

Only in the case of travel booked well ahead. Why should a high fare purchase made say a week before departure get a bad seat just because all the good seats have been taken by pax on cheapy fares who booked months ago have OLCI'ed?

Okay. Previously I used to nearly always get seated in the first 3 rows, and apart from totally full flights would get the middle seat blocked if flying alone. Now I get anything before the exit row, or even after the exit row (got the last row on a Beech 1900D a few times), and have gotten middle seat sometimes. No blocks even when flight is not full and travelling alone (as is the pax by the window) - instead some no status pax is seated between us.

Compare that with QF domestic (in NZ). I nearly always get the same bulkhead seat. On very rare times when I don't I'm in the aisle next row back (or the other bulkhead aisle seat). Even when I've had a late change of flights I normally get a great seat.


That thinking just further encourages NZ to keep padding their schedules. Amazing how WLG-CHC in a 737 takes longer (according to the schedule) than in an ATR or than it took 20 years ago.

Kiwi Flyer

Currently all I see are added costs. They have an extra BP method to maintain. Lots of staff time is spent trying to track down pax who haven't turned up (the friendly lounge front desk staff at AKL seem to be doing nothing much else besides this - which means less service for other things the lounge guests require help with).

Delayed departures putting extra pressure on the rest of the system to make up the lost time. 10 minutes may not sound like much but out of a 40 minute block time it is material and has snowball effects. And when they don't recover the time (and it grows over the day) increases the number of potential misconnects (because many scheduled regional connections are only 20 minutes) further compounding the issue.

terrier

Is OLCI/PYOBP available on Link flights and/or domestic multistop itineraries and/or domestic itineraries purchased from the US?

I didn't have the option to do OLCI or seat request when I booked my internal NZ flights last month through the US website, and the Manage Booking tools available now suggest I'll have to check in at a kiosk or counter.

Given no Air Points or *A status this year, should my spouse and I resign ourselves to separate middle seats in the last row, or is there another way to put in a useful seat request before day of flight?

Blackcloud

Call NZ and get the seats arranged?
When I travel for work I cannot OLCI due to the ticket not being released until the day before by the travel agent (also I think you can only OLCI if booked via the website anyway).
As for late departures NZ gets fined by the airports increasing the costs. I agree with Quokka on some points, eg. regarding missing the flight, but I do not think specific seat allocation or checking in more than 48 hours is a good idea IMO for the reasons stated by myself and Kiwi Flyer.

Quokka

I don't see this as a problem with OLCI or PYOBP but rather a problem in the priorities of or given to the staff. Yes, they should be serving the guests who show up and not spending time on those who don't. That doesn't mean dropping OLCI and PYOBP is the answer, rather it simply means serving the lounge guests that are there is the solution.


Again don't drop OLCI/PYOBP or any other form of checkin, but simply stop waiting for late or missing originating pax, no matter how they checked in or got their boarding pass. Pax are responsible for getting to the airport, to the gate and on the plane. Air NZ is not responsible to hunt pax down, locate them and herd them on to the plane and those efforts are what should be dropped, not OLCI/PYOBP.

everywhere

Well I think there are two separate issues here
1) People having OLCI'd not showing up - yes that is a problem
2) More people pre-selecting seats because the website allows you to do it, rather than needing a travel agent or telephone. It is important to note that the good seats [eg 733 1-7 and the exit] are marked NV so you need to be *S or higher to select them anyway. This is just more people making use of a service that was always there - and has nothing to do with OLCI & PYOBP at the time of booking.

oranjemakker

Interesting thread

As ntddevsys said isn't it just a case of Air NZ blocking/ reserving enough good seats for elite/ full fare pax? It seems to me that the online boarding passes is not so much the issue -- I mean other airlines (not sure about domestic in NZ) allow you to reserve seats at time of booking which as the same effect I guess -- but rather its how Air NZ do (or don't) hold the good seats for the best PAX. This would seem to me to be the best line of complaint to them: why are they not holding enough seats back to satisfy their premium flyers?

Maybe if there is so much demand they need to restrict front rows to Gold/ Elite only, or even Elite only on the busiest routes?