Hi all.

A rare visit from me from the BA forum. Please excuse my ignorance and inability to search accurately but I would like to know a little more about the Christchurch to Sydney route. We are away on honeymoon and it seemed like the perfect time to splash out on EK first class. I have a few questions though if anyone is able to help?

Will we be able to use the limo service? I've heard both answers.

Is it worth paying extra for F on this route instead of J? I was hoping to try the 380 from AKL but our plans see us returning from the South Island unfortunately.

Which lounge is used in CHC?

Many thanks

You can't use Chauffeur Drive on exclusively trans-Tasman itineraries, so on just a CHC-SYD sector, no luck unfortunately.

F instead of J is always a difficult choice for a relatively short sector, especially on a fifth freedom route. I think it would depend on the price differential; you are on your honeymoon though, and honeymoons are for memories, so perhaps it might be worth it in this case. On a more objective note, the F hard product is noticeably better than the J product on the 777 and there is full catering/service.

EK use the Manaia lounge at CHC which is airside in the international departures area. It's usually extremely full, but has decent provisions. An EK outstation lounge is better though.

For completeness, J is �280 whereas F is �420.

Thank for you for reply. Shame about the limo, that would have made the decision very easy.

For that price I'd take F and enjoy a bottle of Dom

I've flown that sector a few times. Usually not very full. You get a good dinner (no caviar) and the run of the F wine list (including the Dom). For a honeymoon and especially if you enjoy your wine I would be tempted. It is worth being in a window seat on the left of the aircraft for the the first 30 minutes - if the weather is clear you get fantastic views of the Southern Alps, Mt Cook and the West Coast

I'm going to come in with a slightly different view, having also flown the sector in F myself.

Mine was part of a very long multi-sector trip with EK, in F throughout, so the CD was included at both ends, and the pro-rata cost of the CHC-SYD leg itself was IIRC lower than the cost quoted by the OP.

Sure, it's good to be 'up in the front', nice & comfy but ..... on balance I would say there are better things to spend the cash on. It really does feel a very short sector once you're up in the air, almost over before you know it. It can seem even routine, and my fellow pax - within what was a surprisingly full cabin - all were rather blas�, as it were, and treating it like a 'commute'. And no lounge/bar or shower facility of course.
In fact I strongly suspect that many of them were QF high status, regular travellers, who had either upgraded with points or in a few cases been Op-upped.

At the end of the day, you pays your money and makes your choice ....!

PS re lounge : as eternaltransit says, the lounge is respectable but busy and really nothing special. Or, to put it another way ....eminently forgettable !!

I prefer 1st on the 777 vs the A380 . there are fewer seats in the cabin and the suites are just as nice. There is no shower, but is there any need for a shower on a 3 hour flight ?

Compared vs business class, the 1st on the 777 is a bigger improvement over business than 1st is on an A380 vs business on a A380 - so a better purchase than against a 380 service imo

I don't agree actually. J service on a 380 can be very poor whereas F is pretty good even when full.

J on the 777 is usually decent if not a little robotic.

Not to derail this thread, but, the last time I flew in J on the 380 I found the service to be incredibly slow and poor.

As an aside, I have always wanted to do the DXB-BKK-SYD-CHC in full just to see what it is like, talking to an off duty 777 pilot recently and he was telling me that crews like this flight as it gives them several stop overs and I think he said was a 9 day trip away from home.

Those crew must be having some tensions at home if they like such a long trip . Most married flight crew that I know like to do ULH turnarounds (I.e. 24h layover and back, not onward) as it gets them their monthly hours in the fewest days away from home.

Really .....???

How many crew do you actually know - and from which airline (s) ....??

I ask because, from my own time spent living & working in the Gulf, this seems very much at odds with the views of the majority of crew I came into contact with. Their general objective was to maximise earnings through overseas/meal allowances on long blocks.

Maybe I'm out of date. Would be interested in any perspective that could be offered by someone with in-depth EK knowledge such as eternaltransit.

It's perfectly acceptable - you get to see a lot of different crew members as there's a change at each stop. At SYD, if it's on time, you can even manage to shower in the EK lounge, have a snack there, walk all the way to the QF F lounge, have champagne and a coffee chaser and be back in time to board the flight to CHC

Most crew like it for a few reasons - the general feeling is main fleet crews are nicer with each other (both working and going out) and of course you get paid a lot, both with duty time and per diems. BKK and SYD are popular destinations as they are fun - and ones where the nice crews get together rather than all split off and do their own thing. And you get the layover twice - once out and once back.

And as regards married flight crew - well, they get more rest periods and they have lots of time away from home...all I can say is that married or not, many flight crew enjoy being away for two weeks in the company of a revolving set of pretty young things (male or female!)

No, you're right - EK418 is a highly coveted roster position, especially if one is main fleet: it's one of the only opportunities that someone who can only operate 777 (e.g. main fleet cabin crew, i.e. non-A380 or 777 pilots) can get to go to BKK or Australia. That combined with all the $$$ from the duty time and the fact BKK and SYD are great destinations with two (!) layovers on *each* city on the roster make it a flight where all the crew are generally in good spirits. It only gets ruined if you have a tyrannical Purser! (The flight crew have different rest scheduling so the cabin crew are the ones who stick together for the whole 9 days).

As well as this, the day flight is ex-DXB (so no waking up at silly o'clock to go to work), so you get an evening in BKK, as well as morning and afternoon in BKK the day after - you only have to operate an evening service then everyone sleeps (so you don't have to sleep much in your BKK layover). You arrive into SYD in the morning, so you get to have a morning nap then the whole day in SYD. Then the day after you wake up and go to CHC for during the day for a turnaround. Then you get another day in SYD and operate an evening flight back to BKK which gets in at 0100ish). You get *another* full day in BKK then operate a flight at 0225 where everyone is asleep again.

Pretty much perfect timings all around for crew and layover planning which we all know is the most important part of their lives

That's pretty much what I thought !

I very much doubt many crew apply to the likes of Emirates (knowing the nature of its wide & growing network - which, in itself, is a major attraction of course) with the idea of spending as little time away from home as possible.

A very close relative who is an EK A380 captain and through him have met around another 10 EK pilots (all South African, socialising in DXB). I was referring to pilots not cabin crew. Granted cabin crew (at EK) tend to be less committed at home than pilots, who often have families.