Originally Posted by
40love
Sorry in advance I couldn’t find an Air Chathams forum to post this.
I have been advised on several independent occasions from both their call centre and check in staff at AKL that change is permitted to *earlier* flights same day free of charge subject to a seat being available.
The situation finally came up and at the check in counter I was advised that I would need to wait (essentially until all passengers checked in) to determine weights before I could be confirmed. [Edit: equipment Saab 340]
Is this business as usual? No mention of weights when enquiring about changes. Sounds Air change policy is also free on day at the airport check in subject to seat available (could be weight dependent too but not published as such).
Does Air NZ deny passengers on standby for weight reasons? I have heard of offloading for weight so possibly yes now that I think about it? Jetstar offloaded luggage instead on an AKL-DUD flight earlier this year - I’m guessing to avoid paying passengers for offloading them lol.
The thing I don’t get is that presumably a paying passenger could still have purchased a last minute fare and added extra luggage at the same T-minus interval as I arrived at the check in counter.
Firstly no need to apologise. There is no Air Chathams on FT but we could ask for it if you want and see what they say. Reality is it’s likely going to be people from this same Air NZ forum answering anyway.
Secondly if you’ve been told what Air Chathams policy is by their call centre and check in staff then that info is correct. You can change. I usually ask 2 or 3 times. If I get differing answers in the 2nd enquiry then the 3rd time becomes the decider.
Weight should matter for every airline. It definitely matters for the Saab as I have flown another airline and they will leave your bag behind. BUT you need to specify you are connecting especially if you are on separate tickets and they don’t know that, as they’re less likely to leave YOUR bag behind…. They’ll just leave someone else’s bag behind instead and that’s fine by me 😬😂 They can put it on the next flight.
Air NZ has bigger planes than sounds air or Chatham’s so I don’t think they run into that issue. If you have a seat on NZ then assume your bag is coming with you if that’s the fare you bought with bags included.