Air New Zealand Air Points - Longest NZ flight within NZ

Experienced my longest ever flight within NZ on Saturday.

NZ 8358 CHC to HLZ d09h15 a13h00

Flight duration 3h45m (normal flight time is 1h40m)

Spent 2 hours circling HLZ due to fog and low cloud level, but landed eventually otherwise would have been off to PMR since AKL was marginal and TRG was also not available. (Captain did not mention ROT or NPL as options for diverting to.)

PS. Not bad for a $3 grabaseat deal. Thanks NZ! :)

Did you at least get your 12 status points? :p

FlightStats (http://www.flightstats.com/go/FlightStatus/flightStatusByFlight.do?id=163609604&utm_source=airlineInformationAndStatus&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=co-op): "Arrived at gate 165 min later than scheduled."

Silly me, I actually used A$ to pay for it so no status credits for me. Still learning about the ins and outs of NZ's A$ programme.

On the other hand, it was much quicker to purchase using A$ (cf credit card). My feeling is that you need every advantage possible when trying to secure a very cheap fare on grabaseat. Being logged in to the website and using A$ helps a lot in that regard.

Being logged in to the website and using A$ helps a lot in that regard.

Or using scripts to book the flights for you :D

Not that I would ever do such a thing, of course! :rolleyes:

I had of these flights.
WLG-DUD took nearly 4 hours in an ATR, circling the airport waiting for the fog to clear.
It also took 4 landing attempts with the last aborted landing exciting as the pilot decided the execute a very sharp turn and land upwind as he could make the visual landing from that direction, very light wind.
The big problem we had was being kept in our seats for all that time due to the plane being ready for landing so no laptop, drinks or toilet access.:(

I can't recall any significant delays on NZ, in NZ, in the air, but did have one unusual one on the ground, at WLG, on what seemed like an atrocious weather day but was probably nothing unusual for Wellingtonians ;).

The plane was pushed back from the gate, idled for 20 minutes or so on the apron - rocking in the wind in conditions that presumably had inbound aircraft holding in a pattern, taxied away for take-off, queued up, idled for a while longer at #1 as the wind rose some more, taxied to the other end of the runway due to a wholesale change in wind conditions, queued up some more as the airport temporarily shut down again, made it to #1 again, and then - presumably as a result of pre-takeoff checks - taxied back to the terminal for refuelling!

Ultimately there was a white-knuckle-death-grip take-off and a normal flight time to AKL ...

The only real delay which I've had in the air was on a CHC-HLZ flight too. We circled for sometime before the pilot eventually just said we were going to be redirected.

But I would have loved to be on that flight!

NZ should look into giveing out status points to its members when there flights are delayed. It isnt going to cost them much at all.

Say 10Status points per hour of delay.

NZ should look into giveing out status points to its members when there flights are delayed. It isnt going to cost them much at all.

Say 10Status points per hour of delay.

Lol... you'd have a whole bunch of nitwits becoming Gold or Gold Elite on particularly bad days in ZQN :D

NZ should look into giveing out status points to its members when there flights are delayed. It isnt going to cost them much at all.

Say 10Status points per hour of delay.

That's a dumb idea. What happens on days like last Saturday when every flight out of AKL is delayed by hours?

That's a dumb idea. What happens on days like last Saturday when every flight out of AKL is delayed by hours?

with exceptions such as weather