Have flown NZ revenue BP long-haul between AKL and LAX/SFO 12~14 times over the last 2 years or so. I still don't understand what value the "concierge" provides or is supposed to provide to pax. On 1/3 of the flights, they've come around sometime during the flight with a "welcome onboard" while on the other 2/3 of the flights they either aren't onboard or too busy/not interested in doing the greeting (honestly, as pax have been greeted at the door, when seated, and during the inflight announcements, this additional greeting really doesn't add anything).

Beyond saying hello, what do they actually do during the flight? Yesterday is a perfect example. On my AKL-SFO on 22Jul the concierge could barely be found. I had a problem on my inbound flight to AKL the day prior and was keen to speak to someone about finding a resolution for it. While serving post-takeoff drinks, the phenomenally good flight attendant serving Zone A said she'd have the concierge come round to provide assistance. An hour later, the same FA followed-up and asked me if the concierge had come round yet ("uh, nope!"). An hour later, same follow-up, and same response ("no, not yet"). Finally, 4 hours later, the conc did, at which time I'm now even more frustrated by the initial problem that generated the request for assistance.

The concierge was friendly, but unable to provide any actual assistance other than "give me your e-mail and I'll see if cust service can contact you," which I'm guessing is a passing the ball situation.

I feel as if the promotion of an inflight concierge creates expectation levels that aren't matched in practice and, as such, serve to frustrate and denegrate the NZ flying proposition (at least for BP pax) rather than the opposite. Or said another way, what does the "concierge" do that an FA, especially the lead FA, can't do???