QF114 AKL-SYD A332 VH-EBI
I think I’ve said this three times already in this trip report. So you all know that Qantas fly a A330-200 between Auckland and Los Angeles. They don’t have First. And they don’t even have full flat beds in Business. But what makes the A332 a not-so-nice choice on a 12 hour flight makes it an ideal choice for a 3-hour hop across the Tasman. In order to run AKL-LAX-AKL the planes have to first get to AKL you see. So once a day, Qantas run an early morning SYD-AKL A332 service to position the plane to depart to LAX, and then a midday AKL-SYD A332 service to get the LAX arrival back to SYD. Except on Sundays. I don’t know what they do on Sundays. Something to do with the LAX-AKL plane turning right around at AKL to fly back to LAX. Someone in the Qantas operations department must know what they’re doing.
Qantas have a premium check in lobby area at AKL. When the airport was renovated in 1996 Air New Zealand got their own lobby so presumably Qantas, as NZ’s then main competitor, lobbied for one too. If Emirates had been around then they probably would have built one as well, but now it’s too late. There’s no room. Though the way that airline is expanding in New Zealand it wouldn’t surprise me if they just built their own terminal. They’ve already somehow managed to score the best location in the whole terminal for their new expanded lounge (though concededly, they previously had the crappiest location).
AKL still have one old style flipboard for departures in the main check-in area. You can probably see why they’re phasing them out. Not very many people I know going to MELBOLCCT for a start, though perhaps they know something about Tullamarine’s strategy to turn itself into a low cost hub that we don’t. All the Onestar flights also carried Royal Brunei’s logo, but in that case I think it’s just a mistake.
There’s no direct access to passport control from the QF lobby, but there is an immigration officer stationed to pre-process passengers, who are then directed to the precleared lane upstairs at the main checkpoint. Since using the precleared lane is 1) risky because it shares the same queue with escorted passengers, assisted passengers and sometimes passengers with screaming babies; and 2) not as much fun as pre-clearing myself with my e-passport at Smartgate; and there was a line at preclearance anyway, I opted for Smartgate. There weren’t very many people clearing themselves out of the country, which made a nice change from a couple of weeks ago when one passenger managed to hold up everyone else by deciding it would be a good idea, having inserted her ticket into the gate, to start looking around at everything but the camera in the gate straight in front of her. Unfortunately the Smart in Smartgate doesn’t seem to refer to the people who should be eligible to use them.
There is nothing to love about the Qantas lounge at Auckland. Since the last time I had been there a few years go they’d changed the ceiling and added a few more lights. The view, which was previously the rooftop of the international terminal building, has now been expanded to include not only the rooftop but the corrugated iron back of the new international terminal extension. There was a selection of salads, bread, soup and sweet treats, and a warmer containing what was euphemistically described as “lunch”: mini quiches, mini mince pies and mini sausage rolls. Though I confess, not having had either a pie or a sausage roll since returning to New Zealand I did take one of each, and they were fine, but I think it might be stretching things to label it “lunch”. Morning tea, maybe. The lounge was horribly overcrowded though, and I didn’t stay long before venturing back out to the main terminal where, while it was busy, was much more pleasant. It had a view over the apron for a start.
The A332 was almost full up today, though I was right up the front in 1K. It’s a bulkhead row which does bassinet duty, and as a result the televisions are mounted much lower than normal. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re very good at not getting cricks in your neck from looking down all the time. Or you’re a midget.
MENU
FROM THE BAR
Roasted Nuts
ENTREE
Smoked Salmon with Fennel and Cucumber Coleslaw and Caper Relish
MAIN COURSES
Slow Cooked Duck Ragout with Pan Fried Gnocchi, Spinach and Paremsan
Thai Style Salad of Sticky Pork with Green Pawpaw, Cherry Tomatoes and Fresh Herbs
Herb Crusted Lamb with Red Wine Jus, Minted Peas and Potato Puree
Warm Bakery
Selection of Cheeses
Ice Cream with Biscotti
Chocolates
If the smoked salmon starter looks kind of familiar, it may be because the menu for this flight was the exact same one as should have been given to me on my previous MEL-AKL Jetconnect sector. So if you were reading the previous instalment and lamenting the fact that there was no adequate description of the food, there you are. By chance and circumstance you are not left bereft. Me, on the other hand, could have done without the menu description and instead with something decent to eat, because to be honest the meal dished up on that MEL-AKL segment wasn’t very good.
Despite promising lemon squash on the drinks menu – that’s Solo, folks, and in my opinion one of the very few things I like about flying QF across the Tasman rather than NZ – it wasn’t loaded. This put me in a very bad mood for the rest of the flight and I took it out on the lamb that I chose for the main. Then again, that was the only way the thing was edible, by hacking it with great force into very small pieces and then grinding away at it once it was in your mouth. The potato and peas, on the other hand, was soggy and bland enough that your inpatient at the local Health and Wellness Center (hospital) could have digested it with no problem. No doubt Neil Perry, who I understand is responsible for creating this mess, would say something like that the “textures and flavours of the meal provide great contrast”. I, on the other hand, would simply call it crap.
You know sometimes you read threads on Flyertalk which complain about the food served up in premium class? And then they go on to say that they’ve actually had better meals in Economy? How many of you wonder whether if the thread is a bit of an exaggeration? I candidly admit that sometimes I think that maybe the OP is just being a wee bit precious.
I apologise unreservedly for ever doubting you, because QF on this flight has proved me well and beyond wrong. I actually flew this exact same sector not two weeks before the flight I’m now covering in this report. But in economy. 53A. Yes, apparently seat numbers go that high. And the braised beef and mash that was served down the back won out over the lamb on pretty much everything except the size of the dish. Even the Tip Top chocolate ice cream stick they served was better than the rather cloying chocolate-in-chocolate ice cream in a tub they were catering for dessert.
Credit to QF for the seat, though, for a three hour flight it was a great product to recline in, though as a slanty seat if you tried to sleep in it you would suffer from the well documented wedgie problem. Nothing else exciting happened for the remainder of the flight, other than an approach over the Western suburbs on the crosswind runway which is a rarity for me, and Smartgate in Australia actually working for my passport, which is even more of a rarity. I was green stamped by AQIS at the baggage claim – after not so subtly positioning myself so I was in the way of the roving AQIS officer – and managed to avoid the x-ray, unlike the poor Express Path using soul in front of me who was intercepted for a blast of radiation on his bags.
So, Qantas Business Class across the Tasman. If you want the space to work, or the seat to sleep, it’s a pretty good hard product on the A332. But BYO food. You won’t regret it. My neighbour took one bite of his Thai sticky pork salad and left it alone.
Next: CX’s new new Business Class product. I’d been looking forward to this for a while; you can look forward too!