Hong Kong – Auckland, Air New Zealand premium economy – maybe not.

The final leg home, Hong Kong to Auckland and more fun and games. As I have to be out of my hotel by noon I decide to head to the Kowloon check-in at 1230 and get the train out to the airport, I figure a few hours to watch the planes and world go by won’t be a hardship.

I was looking forward to this flight as I was booked with Air New Zealand in premium economy and interested to try their product, plus I was keen to get home. On check-in though my plans went out the window, the start of the conversation went something along the lines of this

Check-in agent: ‘Sorry I can’t check you in today; your flight has been delayed until tomorrow’
Me: ‘Oh great, well I don’t have anywhere to stay; I guess you guys will have to sort that out’
Check-in agent: ‘No sorry we don’t deal with that, you will need to ring Air NZ’

And on it went from there. Eventually I got to speak to another agent who told me she could ‘probably get me on the CX flight at 1510’. I asked about the fare difference between what I had paid for premium economy and traveling in economy on CX, she said ‘No refund’ and then started talking to her colleague in their own language, nice.

In the end I decided it would be better to just get home at this point so agreed to travel on the CX flight to Auckland, after the agents spent 20 mins doing god knows what they then told me I had to hurry to the airport to make the flight. Overall my impression of the staff at Kowloon station is not a good one, I realise they are not Air NZ employees but they are their agents so it reflects badly on Air NZ.

After getting the train to the station (which is easy, quick and cheap) I went through security, interestingly enough I forgot I had a bottle of water in my carry on which they didn’t pull me up on, and the long walk to one of the far gates at HKG.

CX117 to Auckland is operated by an A340-300 and I had an isle seat near the rear of the aircraft with a school group and various small kids sitting around me, after First class on BA a few days before this was going to be a long 11 hours. On the ground the aircraft interior was very hot and I noticed a number of people complained, to no effect. I knew once we got up in the air the temperature would come down, as I’m sure the crew did so they didn’t do anything.

The flight left 30 minutes late and a very basic dinner offering was served about an hour after take off, I guess the menu is designed to cater for an Asian market so fair enough nothing appealed to me about what was on offer. Subsequently the lights were turned off but the next 7 hours through the night were impossible to get any sleep as all the school kids seemed to want to get up and down and turn their overhead lights on and off, I guess the were excited about their trip.

Breakfast was again so unappealing I left it at one bite, even though I was hungry by this point. It wasn’t just that I was use to meals from business or first but I’ve had far better offerings in economy on Air NZ or Qantas Trans-Tasman than what was served on this flight.

We finally landed at a windy and cold Auckland around 6am (on what turned out to be the coldest day of the year in Auckland to date), which was a bit of a shock from the warmth of Hong Kong and a European summer, still it was nice to be home.