cavemanzk

Just if only they brought back that Aussie $69 Seat Only sale from last March I think allot of us booked short trios on that sale that never ended up going on them.

Notice some days in April Sydney is back to 5x Daily already!

mad_atta

Wow! OK I will calibrate my expectations accordingly! I don't think I had grasped that the 772s were not returning. Is there a plan to add wifi to the rest of the long haul fleet or is the current view that there are far more pressing concerns?

Well I know my experience of SYD-PER on March 26th (A332) and PER-SYD on April 4th (A332) was that despite both aircraft being fitted with wifi and IFE it was disabled both times. They made an announcement encouraging people to download content to their devices. I can understand the IFE being off for now but the lack of wifi seemed a bit mean.

cavemanzk

NZ kept it turn on the whole time on the 320/1NEO’s and even went to the point of pointing out that your flight had WIFI if you where on an NEO.

cavemanzk

Looks like Hobart has been put on sale overnight, starting on Thursday 22 April 2021.

Looks like AKL-HBA is operated by an A320CEO and not NEO at this stage.

Flights are Thursday // Friday NZ197 departs AKL at 0900 and NZ198 Departs HBA at 12:30.

AKL is soon to become very busy again around 0900 and 1700 daily!

Kiwi Flyer

Flights are Thurs and Sun.

sbiddle

Last time I asked it was still planned, but there was no timeframe for it. I guess there are more pressing things at the moment than spending huge $$$ on WiFi installs. The 789 was done at AKL, but all other 777 installs had been done in SIN while aircraft where there for maintenance.

The company owned 200's could potentially return if suddenly travel justified it, but they have all been written down and realistically with the -10 due from late 2022 onwards I simply don't see travel returning to levels that quickly that there will be a need.

One thing I'd be interested to know is what happens to things like seats / IFE on a leased aircraft. Obviously in some cases these stay with a leased aircraft even if it's returned to the lessor.

gambda

Great news! Used my credit for a return flight to PER during labour weekend and lodged my soon to expire RUs. Fingers crossed the bubble doesn’t burst !

nzkarit

Does anyone know if they are processing RUs at purchase for elites at the moment or are they just doing at T-7d onwards?

samyoull

Flew NZ123 this morning in J and FA's were well onboard with 'bubbles for the bubble' – very generous (I think I got three refills due to a slight ground delay) PDB's of actual Piper, and prompt service.

Good times ahead!

sbiddle

Regular Piper Heidsieck or a reserve? First world problems I know but Piper is a bit of a backwards move from Laurent Perrier IMHO!

sbiddle

I've never actually done a day trip to Oz. Figured if I was going to go over for a day I may as well stay the night and drink!

I know a couple of friends who have done this on multiple occasions including a couple of times where they didn't even have carry on bags (one was a visit for lunch, the other for a meeting). On both occasions without bags they were questioned about why they didn't even have a carry on bag - obviously it's something that must trigger a "you must be dodgy" response from customs staff in Aussie.

samyoull

I was rolling carry on only today and got some weird looks from customs until I explained that it was a quick trip, don't think they're used to it.

I didn't catch it, but didn't NZ used to serve Dulcet on the ground?

cavemanzk

How does MPI handle no carry-on the return to New Zealand? They would miss out in suspecting you for carrying an evil Australian grown apple.

I’ve definitely found I’ve been flagged before making an short trip to Australia, when you go to depart the same day and the SmartGate won’t let you out.

Ive stopped in Australia plenty of times for the day on the way home from Aisa. Often it seems the local customs officers in Australia don’t understand it.

Maybe New Zealanders are more open to crazy travel? We are an bunch that like travel too much.

sbiddle

Yeah up until 3-4 years ago they used to serve sparkling on the ground in BP and didn't serve champagne until in the air.

sbiddle

I've experienced multiple occasions in recent years where I've been engaged in friendly conversations with restaurant/bar/retail staff in Australia when I've been over there for a weekend and found them totally surprised that I'm just there for a weekend. I find that really surprising in a country where it's really that different to spending 2hrs + flying from Melbourne to Brisbane for a weekend!

It's not so common with Sat morning flights, but certainly on Fri flights you end up recognising significant numbers of people on the Sun night flights back. 25 years ago even people in NZ would have thought it was strange to go to Australia for a weekend, now it's become something people just do.