Los Angeles to Auckland (LAX-AKL) Business Class on QF 747
For the second time on this trip it was the first day of a change. You may recall earlier I had the first day of the changes to British Airways' new Club World offering (soft product), and today it was to be the first day of the interim lounges at LAX Tom Bradley terminal (TBIT). Yes, after years of politicking and procrastination the abominations that are the TBIT lounges are being demolished and replaced with new larger and hopefully much nicer (surely they have to be!) alliance lounges. In the interim temporary facilities have been set up. More on this later. I bring this all up now as way of explaining why I left for the airport reasonably late and not wanting to spend an excessive amount of time in the terminal, since I was sure the temporary facilities would not be great.
As I headed to the airport I realised that Qantas is the ninth different major airline (ie not counting subsidiaries like Ted or American Eagle) that I have flown into or out of Los Angeles LAX, with this trip involving four of them. The others being
Air Canada
Air New Zealand
American Airlines (mainline + American Eagle)
British Airways
LAN
Lufthansa
Qantas
Singapore Airlines
United (mainline + Ted)
So I arrive at check in, which I notice has been open for several hours already (since 4pm). In answer to my query, the check in agent confirms that the interim lounge is indeed open now (the date had been delayed a few times previously) and that I won't have access to the first as I normally would due to my status since they are severely space restricted. Oh well.
When I get the boarding pass (only 1 this time!) I notice my pre-selected seat has been changed. This likely means one of three things - either a Chairmans Lounge (Qantas' invitation level status) has gazumped my selection (possible but not too likely since only NZ-based CLs or those needing early meeting in NZ would be on this 2-class flight), or the seat is broken (unlikely), or could it be that the seat doesn't exist on this aircraft (meaning it will be a 3-class aircraft being used on the 2-class route and as top tier I got a great first class seat)? Woohoo it is the later.
So now in a good mood, I head through security and off to the interim lounge. I have written a report on it
here. In short as bad as my expectations although the staff seem friendly.
I decided to ditch the lounge early to stretch my legs within the terminal (airside of course so not much else to do). Boarding is delayed as I see the pilots and cabin crew straggle on board, some up to 10 minutes after the scheduled boarding time. Not a good look.
There is a huge queue of business class and elites boarding the left hand side of the gate desk, and before it is even a third of the way through they begin boarding the economy cabin on the right hand side of the gate desk. Since the same airbridge is being used this effectively negates the priority boarding benefit of most premium and elite pax
Still the full flight boards reasonably efficiently and we push back only a few minutes late.
I settle into my seat and enjoy a pre-departure drink while checking the IFE changes since last month. I decide on the movie I'll watch over dinner, something reasonably short so I won't be tempted to stay up too long.
Dinner is good and the crew are fantastic. They don't have very many menu cards so instead of handing them out to all the seats, they pass it over while each passenger makes their selection to hand back once done. I politely ask if I can have a menu once they have finished taking all the orders and she says sure, no problem. Once again they run out of my preferred option before getting to my seat (just a few rows in). Not to worry I really don't want to eat anything much.
We get the usual Qantas business amenity kit. Dinner service is quick and I drop off to sleep straight away, waking only a few hours out from Auckland. That was good for I will be going straight into work on arrival and this flight arrives around 6am.
As expected we have a straight in approach over the city and soon pull into the gate. I walk fast down the pier passing many passengers from other flights that had already arrived, and mentally toss a coin passing the upstairs Australia/New Zealand immigration line. It has more people queuing than usual and only a couple of officers so I decide to try the downstairs one. Bzzzzz wrong answer. I should have taken the upstairs one as the queue downstairs is much longer and also only has 2 officers (for Australia/New Zealand). So instead of my usual, through in 10 minutes or less it takes about 30 minutes including the agriculture x-ray. The customs officer was happy with my conservative answers of a couple of questions - this is usually the best policy in my experience. If in doubt declare and show you have nothing to hide, generally makes it go smoother (and can be quicker).
Brrrr Auckland is much colder than when I left a few weeks prior.