AUCKLAND to MELBOURNE (AKL-MEL) on Qantas 747-400 in business class
Less than 12 hours after arriving at Auckland I was back at the airport checking in for the next trip. Check in was quick - the only minor delay being for the new agent to tell the other agent to check out my crazy routing. Other agent sees that it is me and makes some comment about an earlier trip. I have 4 boarding passes in hand (plus 2 more that I OLCI'ed for on a side-trip). As I'm there the departure tax stickers arrive, but they have no exemption stickers (for less than 24 hours in NZ no departure tax due) - so I need to visit the exchange bureau. I pre-clear immigration and collect my exemption sticker.
I'd arranged to meet up with blackcloud and together we made our way through immigration (a small delay while a large family was being processed by the officer in the pre-clear line), then through security. We both could tell someone was soon going to be picked for wanding. Despite our efforts to fumble our gear and let someone else get wanded, blackcloud drew the short straw.
Then up to the first class lounge for a couple of drinks and a chat.
When I made the booking for this trip almost a year ago I pre-selected a certain seat in the nose, for you never know when you'll get lucky with a 3-class aircraft on this route which is sold as 2-class. Today was my lucky day, and indeed I was unlucky to miss by a day getting 3-class aircraft earlier on the way to Los Angeles. This strategy has served me well over the years.
Our aircraft was late arriving from Los Angeles and thus we departed late also.
Having a busy night in Auckland I was rather sleep deprived. Just as well really, for the IFE was kaput with just flight map working (and later they manually started as non-avod the movie Ratatouille).
This time express immigration cards were handed out.
We arrived late, but fortunately I'd allowed plenty of time for my next flight departure.