Bruce

Pleased to see you posting on the forum. Your posts motivated me to finally sign up.

The new ideas for the Tasman product make a lot of sense to me as a largely leisure traveller and also as someone with a small interest in the NZ domestic hospitality market – many of my customers want everything included, but will always choose on price, not realising that I include linen in the price etc so this development fits with my own experiences.

The real reason I’m posting is that I like how you are clearing up questions about the new product and in particular are promising that everyone who books now will get the Works. Having been burnt some years ago with the introduction of Tasman Express where I booked and paid for the old (expensive) Pacific Product but then saw the price tumble and a new slimmed down in flight product delivered, I am pleased to see that you are open to customer feedback.

I like the idea of booking a family on multiple products. It is effectively what I do on Virgin Blue in Australia.

My ideas/questions are:

1) My wife would always book the Works (assuming a fair price) and would want to use the included seat select, but if my kids are on say seat only (they prefer BOB chips etc) which does not include seat select, then how will seat select work?

Ideally I would like to see the policy that if the adults book the Works, then seat select is extended to children (incl over 12s) on the same booking.

I don’t think it would suit anyone if the combination of seat select for parents (Works) and not for the kids (Seat Only) meant that a family of four ended up buying 1 adult and 1 child on Works on one ticket and 1 adult and 1 child on seat only on another, but in practice either (i) placed the two children down the back in the unselected seats with the adults up front in the selected seats, or (ii) alternatively started passing food down the aisle to get around the problem that the meal booked under the child’s name is really for the parent.

If I perceived that travelling with children effectively means I missed out on the advantage of seat select (i.e. a good seat) then I would be less inclined to upgrade to Works etc.

2) Baggage.

The promo material/quotes in the newspapers talks about a family only booking checked baggage for some members. I have found this works well with Virgin Blue where you purchase weight and there is no limit on the number of items. I buy baggage for 3 people and check in 4 bags with a total weight of 52 to 55kg. I found the 1 bag per pax works OK on AirNZ domestic where each person gets 1 bag included.

Under the new NZ trans-Tasman product (assumming luggage is priced similar to Jetstar) I would have to:

(i) combine my two kids bags into one large bag (hassle plus 3 large bags do not fit well into many rental cars eg Corollas); or

(ii) save money by putting a few extra items in my checked bag and stuffing the kids bags into the over head lockers (I like to limit carry on when travelling with kids to reduce hassles for myself and fellow passengers)


What is important to me is that if two people book a ticket together and only buy one luggage allowance that they can split the weight over two checked bags. I want a policy which allows me to check in my kids bags which are light without feeling I’ve paid for a whole lot of weight I had no need for.


Cheers