Tokyo Narita to Osaka Kansai (NRT-KIX) on Air New Zealand 777-200ER in business
At the appropriate time I arrived at the gate. There was a short delay to boarding announced due to the ubiquitious late inboard aircraft. The announced length of delay was short so I didn't bother heading for the lounge or roaming. Passengers who were issued boarding passes other than at NRT were asked to approach the gate desk. Air NZ always reissues international boarding passes for flights headed to New Zealand, while verifying eligibility to enter New Zealand. However as our next stop was Osaka, or perhaps because I had an ANA-issued boarding pass from my check in at Frankfurt which may have appeared to have been an ANA-issued boarding pass at NRT, there seemed to be some confusion and I was told I did not need my boarding pass to be reissued and was shooed away from the desk.
The flight was going to be full. Originally it was routed as Tokyo to Auckland via Christchurch but some weeks before departure it was combined with the Osaka flight and rerouted as a triangle Auckland to Tokyo to Osaka to Auckland. Some unlucky passengers had to fly on other days or were put on other flights because there wasn't enough space to take all the passengers then booked on the separate Tokyo and Osaka flights to New Zealand as well as the passengers from New Zealand to Osaka.
My favourite seat does not have a lot of nearby overhead bin space as duvets and emergency kit gets stored in the overhead bin immediately above the seat. So I wanted to board early to ensure my carry on will be close to my seat. No such luck. As soon as boarding was announced there was a stampede for the gate and priority boarding was ignored by passengers and the gate staff accepted the chaos. It took a while to get my boarding pass read when of course I was told it would need to be reissued. There was a queue at the desk to do this. When my turn came they tried to move me to another seat but I refused as they didn't appear to have a good reason. By the time I finally entered the airbridge almost every passenger had boarded. My small carry on ended up having to go into a locker
