Air New Zealand Air Points - Changes to in-flight domestic service?

Was just wondering if anyone knew whether this was a new permanant change, or a one (two?)-off that I had this weekend. And what people thought about it.

Flew NZ414 on 23/09 and NZ475 25/09 (WLG-AKL-WLG) and the inflight service had.. changed.. from my usual domestic expectations. Rather than coming through and handing out the water and ExpressCup or whatever they call it, they came through with a trolley asking whether you would like water, tea, or coffee. They then poured the coffee on the spot for you (asking if you want milk or not) and hand it to you. No lid. A basket was offered which contained the biscuits, sugar, and stirrer.

It seemed to work OK on 414 with me getting a coffee and water; but on 475 I ended up without water. Not having a lid on 475 was somewhat bad due to the turbulence - inflight service ended up suspended.

Not sure what I think of it. I guess it cuts their cost as they no longer hand the express cup to everyone, and you have somewhat more of a chance of getting a decent biscuit rather than the typical Macadamia one. I guess I prefer the older system though. It seemed faster.

Thoughts?

(Incidentally, ended up having to move for a passenger-of-size on the return flight. Atleast they were kind enough to give me 12DEF as compensation.

oh- ntddevsys - on both flights the checkin staff were rather.. monotonous..boring..barely spoke a word.)

Flew between AKL and NPL on Tuesday and Wednesday last week and they were still using the ExpressCup service then. So might be a very recent change or only on certain routes?

Wow, hope it's only temporary. I really thought the way they did the domestic service was pretty cool.

Noticed that new style of service on 476 yesterday, which incidentally was delayed and then filled with pax from other flights; so I lost my blocked middle seat (Oh how I long for a domestic premium class). Noticeable by their absence were the descent sweets.

My guess is that new service applies on 737 aircraft. I actually prefer the new system - as I don’t like that airline coffee just getting the water and a biscuit is fine with me. I would agree though that the lid should be back as a safety measure, Clear Air Turbulence can strike at any time after all.

The check-in lady for that flight was much better than the usual – but there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to which bags deserved priority tags, of my four pieces 1 got the Star Alliance priority tag, 2 got the standard priority tag and 1 didn’t get one at all.

As a side point, Does anyone know why it takes such a long time for the pages sent from the computer to arrive at the printer in the WLG Domestic Lounge ?

The new system was in place two weeks ago when I flew AKL-CHC-AKL.

Be garetful - I flew Whangarei-AKL last week and got nothing but a boiled lollie! :p

I would agree though that the lid should be back as a safety measure, Clear Air Turbulence can strike at any time after all.

Forgot to mention - they did come around with lids after the turbulence started, by which stage I'd already had coffee go up my nose.. so it was of limited value.

I think I prefer the old service simply from the fact that it annoys me they pour their defined volume of milk into the cup, so I ended up with one very milky coffee and one that was close to being right. Although they were always varying with the volume of coffee anyway!

I hate it when they miss out on the descent sweets. I've been pretty lucky with that - only one flight missed it and that was NZ6 in business class!

My mainline flight today also didn't have any sweets before final approach - luckily I had some borrowed from the Koru Club. The new Inflight service was in effect, and it must have been ZK-NGO, annoyed that I didn't have 1D – Is there any reason that aircraft has a different configuration to the others ?

The baggage conveyor at NZ Check-In AKL was broken so there were queue's banking up at Check In. The flight was delayed, but there was a lovely spread of scones and chocolate brownies along with two cabinet ministers. Priority luggage claim was it’s usual joke, but Winston was there to pass the time.

It was the same for me on NZ450 on the 30th. Definitely slower on that flight, took almost to Auckland for everyone to get service. I think the old system was better.

I haven't had any problem with approach sweets not arriving.

On a side note.. flew NZ105 over to SYD as well, interesting to note that that 763 was almost completely full in Y (reasonably empty in J). Apparently the Emirates 777 was very full as well, along with the QF flight at around the same time. Seems like that the Tasman is definitely full at the moment, cause that's a hell of a lot of seats.

Priority luggage appeared to come out pretty early on 105, and my bag is usually the first non-priority one on my domestic flights.