Kiwi Flyer

Managed to blank that one out of mind

Zaco

I was in the Auckland Intl lounge on Monday, and it seems the sandwiches are gone, replaced by a few new items. There were mini-pizzas, a pesto pasta salad, hummus and rice crackers (yumm), bread rolls, cheeses (yes, still the same), various salad bits (including nice olives), slices of turkey and salami, vegetables with dips, scones with clotted cream and some other bits I've forgotten - very nice selection. And the bar nuts kept by the spirit bottles are very nice, too. Drinks were good as always, although half of the 4 white wines on offer were Montana (and I definately agree with mad_atta that AirNZ are missing a chance to serve some much better and lesser-known wines here), but luckily there were a few bottles of Selaks Drylands Sauv Blanc tucked away at the back of the fridge. The reading material was pretty poor, no one was reading the BMW magazine (surprise surprise), and pretty much everything else available (including Time and Newsweek) was in Korean or Japanese. There's a third internet PC in a booth near the other two, in case no one has found it yet, although 3 still isn't really enough for such a large lounge. The front desk also has power adapters for laptops. I noticed there are now lounge comment cards available, too.

Cheers, Zac

[This message has been edited by Zaco (edited Jan 13, 2004).]

Kiwi Flyer

[This message has been edited by Kiwi Flyer (edited Jan 13, 2004).]

mad_atta

In one of the inflight magazines recently I remember reading that they are steadily revamping the food available in the Australian and New Zealand international lounges, now that Tasman Express with its reduced meal service has gone live. It's the same concept as they did the previous year with the domestic lounges. I like the new selection, though the clotted cream with the scones is far too sweet for my tastes - at least it was in SYD.

Aha! One of my old favourites.

glg

Anyone been to the PPT lounge? I'm headed that way on vacation in March. The flight from LAX gets in at 02:30 (ugh), so I have to sit around the airport until the first Air Tahiti flight to Moorea.

mad_atta

Info about the refurbished Auckland domestic Koru Club:
http://www.airnz.co.nz/travelinfo/ko...unge_popup.htm

SkiAdcock

Well, the Christchurch staff gets big kudos from me. Didn't realize I left my F-class ticket to LAX, along w/ other documentation, sitting next to the i-terminal. Discovered it this morning; called ANZ hoping I had an e-ticket (I didn't), but there was a note in the record the lounge folk found/had it.

When I checked in for flight to Qtown, they reminded me lounge had it. When I got it to lounge & I walked in, they recognized me from yest & handed it over. They also said they noticed I was on domestic/intl tickets (2 sep) on Mon & to make sure I gave both so I"d be checked right through - which a) was nice; b) meant they pulled up all of my flights off my name because they were 2 tickets so how else would they have known.

ANZ gets a letter from me when I return - especially now that my heart is back in my chest over the fright of thinking I lost everything.

------------------
Sharon

Kiwi Flyer

Lounge at AKL Int was a calm oasis on Friday compared to the chaos downstairs.

End of the holidays and very crowded throughout the terminal. Nice view from the lounge of all the planes being moved around the lot. Poor cousin Freedom Air drew the short straw and had to park way down by NZ domestic terminal as all the other spots at and away from the pier were full!

CorporateFlyer

Do *G or NZ GE members have access to F lounges, even if flying J or Y?

Quokka

Thankfully, no.

Kiwi Flyer

Unfortunately no

MrSydney

Does the lounge at LAX have a view like SYD, AKL & WLG??????

Zaco

The views from the LAX lounge are pretty good actually, you can see some of the terminal 2 and terminal 3 gates (terminal 2 seems to have a couple of Northwest jets and a KLM 744 as a permanent fixture), and there's a good view out over two of the LAX runways.

Cheers, Zac

Kiwi Flyer

bump (extra characters here)

mad_atta

I tried out a new (to me) NZ lounge at the weekend, in the bustling metropolis of New Plymouth. This was my first experience of a 'regional' Koru lounge and I have to say I was quite impressed. It's not exactly large (seating for 30) but it felt spacious, with well-spaced comfy chairs, lots of natural light, big plate glass windows looking out over the apron etc. Besides us there was only 1 other pax in the lounge - ours was the only flight departing at that time, a 2/3 full mid-afternoon weekend departure, so probably mostly leisure pax. Drinks choices included jugs of juices, a couple of different wines and 2 or 3 beers - I can't actually remember if there were any spirits, but I think not. Food options were a plate of sandwiches under cling film, pre-packaged crackers and a range of Kapiti cheeses, and some pre-packaged Arnotts biscuits. Only downside was that the check-in agent didn't mention the lounge to me despite seeing my *G card, and when I asked for the security code (it is an un-staffed lounge, accessible via a code that changes each day) he rather reluctantly gave me a card with today's code written on it. At least he didn't object when I took a guest in with me (which in the regional lounges one is technically not allowed to do).

I also visited the Wellington domestic Koru Club (a.k.a. my second home) several times during the course of my slightly silly itinerary over the last few days (SYD-WLG-BHE-WLG-NPL-WLG-SYD). I'm happy to report that despite the recent 'roof tearing off' incident in the August storms, this lounge is back to its excellent self. The breakfast spread was fairly impressive, and the number of beers on offer has grown to a record fourteen!

The international lounges in SYD and WLG were same as always - SYD is excellent (some tasty new additions to the food options, such as Moroccan spice-rubbed chicken) and WLG is a bit limited. One good thing in WLG is that they had the piccolo sized bottles of Lindauer, which makes more sense - the large bottles they have in SYD are often flat, despite those caps they put on the bottles to keep the bubbles in.

As for the lounge in BHE...