Sydfly
Jul 27, 04, 9:47 pm
One of our favourite holiday destinations in the South Pacific is French Polynesia. We've been there twice already and the next trip in December is already booked. I always hated NZ arrival and departure times for PPT. They are simply lousy and extremely inconvenient. However, we were kind of pleased to see that for our Dec trip NZ had made some schedule changes on NZ40/41 which resulted in somewhat better times for travellers.
In the new schedule NZ40 AKL-PPT arrived at 6am which allowed us to catch the first flight out in the morning to the outer islands. Hotel and flights are already booked and the holiday was meant to start right away on day 1. On the return NZ41 was meant to depart at 7am which also is much better than the previous 3 or 4am departure as you can get at least a few hours of decent sleep prior to the flight to AKL.
But now comes the part where it gets nasty. Yesterday, I was informed that NZ had again changed the schedule (essentially back to where they were about a year ago) and NZ40 will now arrive at 2am which basically means that you have to either hang around the airport until your connecting flight departs or get a hotel room for a few hours in PPT which is not on the cheap side. In addition, the return NZ41 now departs at 2.25 am instead of 7am. This is the worst possible change because it means that they are basically robbing your few hours sleep prior to the flight as you have to be at the airport around midnight now. Essentially, those changes add more cost to your travel budget and even more inconvenience to travellers.
Be honest, this route is a leisure route. Even if the flight continues to LAX, I would bet that the majority of passengers has a stopover in the South Pacific. Those people are on holidays and they don't care whether they get to AKL at 7am or 11am. What they do care about though is to return home relaxed from their holiday. But how is this possible if you spend your arrival and departure night at the airport? What's the point of having these nasty departure times at PPT? :mad: And especially, what's the point of constantly changing the schedule? :mad:
For us the situation is even worse because the change on NZ40 will cause a major family drama. We were meant to leave AKL around midnight on Christmas Eve. Now, the flight leaves at 8pm which means that the family Christmas Eve Dinner will have to take place at the airport? :mad: I haven't told the family yet, but I'm sure they will not be a happy bunch!
I don't know who at NZ comes up with these schedule changes, but I would like to see this person take his family on a vacation to paradise and keep them happy after a 6h night flight arriving at 2am. And I'm sure he also won't like to spend his last vacation day in PPT, heading to the airport without sleep at midnight, boarding the night flight to AKL to arrive there at 7am.
On Business trips those schedule changes might also cause inconvenience. But most of the time you are on a more flexible ticket and can rebook hotels etc. For leisure routes this is not always possible. Who covers the cost for cancelling your hotel stay? Who pays for the rebooking of your flights? NZ won't, even though they caused this IMO unneccessary madness. For us that is enough reason to make this our last trip to FP at least for a while. Maybe NZ has an agreement with FP tourism and they want people to spend even more money on unnecessary hotel nights. If that is the plan, then it clearly works. Congratulations!
I just can't understand why other airlines manage to maintain a decent schedule for their PPT flights, but NZ simply can't. If there is a logic behind these changes I might be willing to accept this, but I have my doubts that there is any.
In the new schedule NZ40 AKL-PPT arrived at 6am which allowed us to catch the first flight out in the morning to the outer islands. Hotel and flights are already booked and the holiday was meant to start right away on day 1. On the return NZ41 was meant to depart at 7am which also is much better than the previous 3 or 4am departure as you can get at least a few hours of decent sleep prior to the flight to AKL.
But now comes the part where it gets nasty. Yesterday, I was informed that NZ had again changed the schedule (essentially back to where they were about a year ago) and NZ40 will now arrive at 2am which basically means that you have to either hang around the airport until your connecting flight departs or get a hotel room for a few hours in PPT which is not on the cheap side. In addition, the return NZ41 now departs at 2.25 am instead of 7am. This is the worst possible change because it means that they are basically robbing your few hours sleep prior to the flight as you have to be at the airport around midnight now. Essentially, those changes add more cost to your travel budget and even more inconvenience to travellers.
Be honest, this route is a leisure route. Even if the flight continues to LAX, I would bet that the majority of passengers has a stopover in the South Pacific. Those people are on holidays and they don't care whether they get to AKL at 7am or 11am. What they do care about though is to return home relaxed from their holiday. But how is this possible if you spend your arrival and departure night at the airport? What's the point of having these nasty departure times at PPT? :mad: And especially, what's the point of constantly changing the schedule? :mad:
For us the situation is even worse because the change on NZ40 will cause a major family drama. We were meant to leave AKL around midnight on Christmas Eve. Now, the flight leaves at 8pm which means that the family Christmas Eve Dinner will have to take place at the airport? :mad: I haven't told the family yet, but I'm sure they will not be a happy bunch!
I don't know who at NZ comes up with these schedule changes, but I would like to see this person take his family on a vacation to paradise and keep them happy after a 6h night flight arriving at 2am. And I'm sure he also won't like to spend his last vacation day in PPT, heading to the airport without sleep at midnight, boarding the night flight to AKL to arrive there at 7am.
On Business trips those schedule changes might also cause inconvenience. But most of the time you are on a more flexible ticket and can rebook hotels etc. For leisure routes this is not always possible. Who covers the cost for cancelling your hotel stay? Who pays for the rebooking of your flights? NZ won't, even though they caused this IMO unneccessary madness. For us that is enough reason to make this our last trip to FP at least for a while. Maybe NZ has an agreement with FP tourism and they want people to spend even more money on unnecessary hotel nights. If that is the plan, then it clearly works. Congratulations!
I just can't understand why other airlines manage to maintain a decent schedule for their PPT flights, but NZ simply can't. If there is a logic behind these changes I might be willing to accept this, but I have my doubts that there is any.