Route: NZ5 LAX-AKL
Day/Night flight: Night
Cabin / Seat No. (aisle / window / middle): Premium Economy 30E
Seat comfort (width ok?): Width was acceptable, overall comfort was fairly low (see below).
Legroom: Very poor.
Ease of getting in and out: Fairly reasonable.
Food: Very good.
Drink: Very good (until
NZ*Trout broke his).
FA attentiveness: Very good; but noted that there were extra crew on the aircraft as well as the concierge helping out with the service, and that the crew looked very tired at the end of the service, I think that NZ will have to do more here.
AVOD: Screen is nice, although the lack of polarisation is a negative as it increases the cabin light pollution in a very white cabin. The IFE itself was nice, relatively responsive (although not good enough, imho), but it crashed four or five times on me - the first before we had departed.
Would you do it again?: Probably not.
Other thoughts?: Lots!
Unfortunately I was seated next to
NZ*Trout on this sector so my view is somewhat skewed. We originally had 27J and 28J, but were able to snag 30D/30E about 48 hours from departure.
The cabin is very white and very nice looking, although I think they will struggle to keep it looking so pure. There is a
lot of plane for boarding passengers to walk through, so I'd strongly recommend boarding very late for Business or PE passengers. We boarded relatively early and learned this error quickly.
I really wanted to like the seat, because of the marketing I'd read and seen about it. I had never visited Hangar 9 so I did not know what to expect, but I was sorely disappointed by it. The legroom is utterly pathetic and definitely worse than a domestic 733 in Space+, and I was overall uncomfortable on the flight. I did sleep in it... but I can sleep on pretty much anything and in any class of service.
Seat thoughts:
- The tilt function is worthless, except to remind you that un-tilted is less uncomfortable than tilted.
- There are lots of usability bugs in the design: e.g. the handset for the IFE should be in the seatback infront of you. There is no cupholder which could either go in the seatback or in the middle 'divider'. The middle divider has to be down for takeoff and landing. The headphone plug is not on the seat infront of you, but to the side so you potentially have cords wrapped around you. They use a non-standard video connector for iPod etc attachment (!). All extremely minor stuff but you do have to wonder about it - these were assessments made in about the first 90 seconds of sitting in the seat.
- The width is fine, I was relatively comfortable in that regard.
- The recline is basically a joke and severely impacts the legroom you have. In my case I went from one leg hard up against the seat in front to two, which was very uncomfortable.
- The legroom overall is extremely poor and I was disappointed. Removing a row from the aircraft would probably help this a lot. The lack of legroom does also make it look / feel a bit weird climbing in and out of the seat.
- There appears to be a bug in the table design in that glasses will eventually slide off it if left unattended (and not for long periods!). The meals are served on a rubberised mat for traction which is a good idea, but the table slope when weight is applied will be a problem.
- I didn't try to use my laptop in the seat but I can't say I'd feel it's (comfortably) feasible.
- TV placement is weird. It's either in the seat back or right in front of your eyeballs.
- If you are travelling as a couple, the orientation of the seat ensures you will get a sore back after about 45 minutes trying to talk to/maintain eye contact with each other. I solved this by ignoring NZ*T
but it's not wonderful. I noticed a couple in 27AB were also finding it a bit weird to work with.
- Observation from a colleague is that the JK seats are awful; and there is an additional pair of seats on the starboard side which makes me wonder if there is less pitch vs port.
The food and drink was great - it does seem like an improvement. I had heard from the crew that there were significant problems with the new ovens on the aircraft, and by my flight (6th revenue Pacific sector) they were operating with a mix of old and new ovens. The crew were attentive but they were very busy in dealing with the service, and noted that they had additional crew onboard to support the introduction. I
really think they will struggle with this.
The IFE's ordering service intermittently worked - some things were disabled for various parts of the flights without rhyme nor reason.
NZ*Trout was able to order a toasted sandwich which arrived, but mine didn't. His ordered iPod video connector did not arrive (and the crew had indicated during taxi that these would be available for purchase, but the ordering system on the IFE did not reflect this).
I specifically booked this flight to try out the new seat since I'm finally living in an NZ served port so will likely be back on NZ metal again, but I'm pretty depressed about it. I had really wanted to like this and for it to work out, but overall the impression is a net negative due to the seat. I'll continue to book Premium Economy, but only on the older metal. After that I'll book Economy and get an exit row (although I really shudder when I think of Economy on the 10-abreast layout, given
NZ*Trout's comments).
There was a Canadian passenger seated behind me who did like the seat a lot; but he was comparing it to EK Y...
And finally, yes I recognise that this is premium ECONOMY, not PREMIUM economy, but the fare charged for product delivered on some sectors are starting to get into the PREMIUM ECONOMY levels. For USD2500 return I wasn't unhappy, but I will avoid the new seats as much as possible.