mad_atta

I've generally had pretty smooth sailing with my short-haul NZ travel, but on my recent trip this was definitely not the case:

• NZ104 SYD-AKL 24 Jan: Scheduled dep. 1145 arr. 1645, actual 1254 - 1759. Inbound delay to Sydney exacerbated by really painfully slow turnaround (apparently due to cleaners). Made for uncomfortably tight connection to Domestic
• NZ8205 AKL-BHE 24 Jan: Scheduled dep. 1845 arr. 2015, actual 1900 - 2029. To be fair, lots of passengers transferring from NZ104, like me - though I moved fast enough that they def didn't delay it on my account
• NZ5212 BHE-AKL 4 Feb: Scheduled dep. 1315 arr. 1425, actual 1335 - 1459. Not a huge delay... but again a slow turnaround of a delayed inbound aircraft. Would have made for a fairly tight connection to international, but...
• NZ111 AKL-SYD was cancelled while I was inflight on NZ5212. Apparently an issue with the toilet. I was proactively rebooked on NZ109 which is 3' 40" later than my originally scheduled flight. No dice re getting put onto either of the two QF flights in the meantime - the ticketing desk said there was no space available (though I could see a couple of seats on EF - but only seconds before flight closing by that point so I gave up). To give NZ credit, at least NZ109 departed on time and arrived early... but still a 3+ hr delay for me vs my original schedule.

Leaving aside my flights, I put my cousins on a BHE-WLG flight on Feb 3rd, which ran a 2.5hr delay (particularly galling on a 15 minute flight). And I noticed a disproportionate number of delayed and cancelled flights when looking at the arrivals/departures boards (eg yesterday's AKL-ORD).

Is this typical now or did I just happen to observe/experience a few worse than usual days? I definitely got the sense that ground crew's appetite or ability to turn planes around quickly to help mitigate delays seemed to be minimal to non-existent, so delays seemed to snowball.

gratn

I’d say your experience is pretty typical.

Over the last 8 months (around 15 return flights across the domestic and trans-Tasman networks) I’ve had one flight depart within 15 minutes of the scheduled time and every other flight go later, almost all with multiple departure changes notified in the app.

Travelling to SYD last week, NZ103 was on time (wheels up around 9.15am) but NZ110 coming home was around 90 minutes late due to “operational reasons” (wheels up around 7,30pm).

As a minor rant, after at least 3 (if not 4) delays being notified in the app, a boarding call was finally made in the lounge at SYD. Bear in mind this is around a 1-2 minute walk to the gate. When I am told “boarding has now commenced” that is what I (foolishly) expect to be happening. Radical stuff. Instead, the lounge emptied with tired passengers ready to finally head home and we all waited nearly 20 more minutes in a queue downstairs before boarding actually commenced. If I had been alone (instead of with family) I would have gone back to the lounge after the first few minutes.

As a further rant, shout out to the “doctor” (turns out an Auckland Uni academic, not a medical doctor) who cut in front of us in the queue by pretending to know the nice lady in front of us. I hope you enjoyed boarding slightly earlier than you deserved. The same guy tried to cut in front of me again in the single file, stay on the green line exit from airside after landing and processing. At approaching 12.30am NZ time and with lots of luggage and a very tired child (and being equally tired myself) it took considerable effort for me to politely say “excuse me sir, they want us to stay in single file for the sniffer dogs” rather than saying what I wanted, which was “hey dumbarse, wait your ....ing turn”.

cavemanzk

The “cleaning delay” is a good old favourite of NZ especially on the East Coast of Australia. I heard them use that one way to many times, BNE is the evening can be made for that one.

But then I’ve had that recently happen too on early AM flights ex AKL, when the a321 overnighted on AKL. How they didn’t clean it when it arrived 5hrs earlier.

Also had a few delays on f recent times with NZ ex AKL in the early AM on a a320/321. Calming that it was due to catering, after so long maybe they should just leave with our it?

ChasingDaylight

QF recently in BNE when asked (by someone else) why boarding hadn't commenced at 1655 as per the BP & info boards, as it was now 1720. Gate staffer said QF print that on the boarding pass so everyone turns up then, in advance of the actual boarding time..

cavemanzk

Often QF125 doesn’t board until 5:30, despite being a 5:40pm departure. But somehow they often board it in under 10min’s, BNE airside is so birding everyone can’t wait to escape it.

Typically QF125 aircraft operates AKL-BNE-POM-BNE-AKL, it only gets back to BNE at 4:35pm.

sbiddle

One thing to note as well with TT flights ex NZ (and this obviously doesn't apply to every flight all of the time) is that many to SYD and MEL arriving during morning and evening peak times will often leave late if it's going to be a quick flight time to ensure they get their slot time. Both airports are incredibly busy during these times so arriving on time is a lot better than having to hold if you arrive early and have to fly around in circles before being sequenced.

nzkarit

Yeah with delayed boarding/departure I more look at arrival times, as TT and further afield usually on time.

Often FR24 is a good indication to look at how departure time maps to arrival time.

Domestic once a delay has set in for a plane it cascades throughout the day. As with all the Pratt issues no planes seem to be taking a long lunch break like they did before which gave them a chance to catch up some small delays from morning peak.

CHCflyer

I am suffering from successive delays at the end of the day. Last flight home is the most frustrating. I realise now that a 15 min delay means 30 minutes, and the new departure time shown on the board or via text really means the new boarding time.
it’s all a bit sloppy in a friendly way

MikeBOS

I've recently started flying AirNZ a lot both domestically and to AU and my experiences are similar to others on this thread. Operationally this airline seems up there with the worst of the US carriers (e.g. JetBlue), with chronic delays and cancellations. My last experience involved a 2 hour delay, 15 minutes at a time, where the only information the gate agent would share was that they were cleaning the toilets. After 2 hours the flight was cancelled, and the captain came out to explain that the toilets had overflowed but they had no way to clean it up so they were cancelling the flight. I booked a backup in that case on Qantas so got there (the flight was AKL-SYD), but the way they handled the whole situation was really poor, both in terms of their ability to deal with it and with the communication.