AUCKLAND to SYDNEY (AKL-SYD) on Air New Zealand 767-300 in business class
I'd been looking forward to the trip all week, even going so far as to check whether or not I would finally get to see "Up in the Air" whilst up in the air. BTW I love the online IFE listing and wish more airlines did this.
Even though I've gotten up at a ridiculously early hour for a flight hundreds of times, the the shock on wakening to the shrill of my alarm only a couple of hours after getting to bed still gets me each time. After
my shocking alarm error last year I think I'm now more wary about missing these early flights, which doesn't help with getting a good quality couple of hours of sleep. It also has had the side effect that I'm more jumpy when the alarm goes off.
Today I was up in plenty of time to pack and walk to the airbus. At this early hour there were more cabin crew than airline passengers. The trip to the airport was quick and I arrived just when I wanted to - in between the initial rush of earlybirds who turn up too many hours before departure, but before the laggards on the early flights. The premium check in lobby had 4 manned desks and only 1 passenger.
I'd hoped to get boarding passes for the first 5 flights, or failing that the first 3 at least. Unfortunately I was only able to get 2 boarding passes. There were no queues at premium immigration and only a very short one at security, so within 5 minutes of arriving at the airport I was at the lounge. The 2nd passageway of shops appears to be nearly ready to open, but it seems the corridor to the lounges will be more busy when it does as this is where the passageway opens out to.
There was a family with a couple of teenagers camped in the middle of the lounge, oblivious to lounge ettiquette. The were loud and obnoxious. I'm sure the other lounge guests and staff did not need to hear about their plans to ask their hotel for extra sleeping bags because they were only going to book one bed, and they had a heated argument about which hotel to book.
It got worse. They'd bought a bottle of duty free booze and someone remembered there are liquids restrictions so they had a loud debate over whether to stash the bottle in the lounge for someone else to find, or polish it off themselves. On and on it went. I tried to shut it out while working on the computer, but alas one of them came over and loudly asked when I was finishing up - I pointed out there were 3 computers vacant just waiting to be switched on, but apparently that wasn't good enough.
I don't know if it was my tiredness but it seemed surreal and for a while I wondered if this was for some tv show or movie - surely it cannot be real?
The lounge steadily filled. Despite being holidays, both public and start of school holidays, there were many customers and eventually most seats were taken. I guess a fair portion were people who'd booked in the recent trans-Tasman sale which included free lounge access (and the fares were pretty low too). Good for Air NZ filling their aircraft more to cover drop in business custom, but a much worse lounge experience for those that already had access.
Eventually I gave up and headed for the public area of the terminal where it would be more peaceful.