Can anyone give me details if EK operate or use a First class lounge in Christchurch?

I seem to remember that they offer no access at all, but some sort of voucher to spend in café/duty free?

CHC doesn't have a first class lounge of any sort.

AFAIK, Christchurch and Hyderabad were the 2 EK destinations without an available premium lounge. However, it now seems that HYD has a lounge, yet CHC still does not.

Cheers

IIRC, there are only two airline lounges in CHC, neither are first class lounges.
One is the Air New Zealand Koru Lounge, the other Qantas lounge. It's the same for domestic and international terminals. - It's a small place.

I flew in F CHC-SYD for the long weekend just been (Queen's birthday), and when I checked in they gave me the usual cafe voucher in lieu of lounge access.

BUT, the check-in agent did tell me that work was currently being completed on a lounge in CHC, and that it would be open in "a couple of weeks". Haven't seen or heard anything about it anywhere else, but I guess she should know?

I asked where it would be and she said she thought it was where the old Air NZ lounge used to be.

Good news for EK travellers departing from CHC - lounge access is something that has been missing for folk in C & F (& I know I always appreciate it...)

From what has been reported, Air NZ and QF have been refusing to deal with EK (or at least not giving terms EK can accept) with respect to lounge use for EK pax.

Gotta love EK's strategy - if you won't deal with us, we'll just build our own damn lounge. A poke in the eye for the other airlines, if their CHC lounge is anything like the ones in their other outports.

Don't forget Alexandria

CHC now has an Emirates lounge (contracted out to their ground provider PlaneBiz, and called the "Manaia Lounge") for First/Bus & Skywards Gold passengers.

It is apparently where the old NZ lounge was before it moved (although I never used the old one, so can't confirm).

Anyway, used it last week and it was fairly small, but comfy seats, plenty of reading material & drinks, food a bit sparse (although I did note that a fair amount of new food came out after I had selected my items).

I was pleased to see it up & running as the lack of lounge was one of the downfalls of flying in First/Bus on the CHC-SYD route. Not up to the Sydney standard (bubbly was Arcadia vs Moet for example), but certainly better than a voucher for the airport cafe!

We can now include BLR in the list of those not having a premium lounge. In fact, forget about premium, there is no lounge at all

Thanks nzchick - good to know should I need to route through CHC instead of AKL

I was just scheduled for F CHC to SYD wouldnt u know it the plane was late out of DXB and cancelled so they put us on qantas
so I didnt get to check out the EK lounge they told us just to use that QF one maybe they closed the EK one that day/

Yeah, my Sunday flight SYD-CHC was cancelled so I ended up on an NZ A320 in C - bit of a comedown from the expected EK A340 F! I used the NZ lounge as I was pretty late checking in & it was more convenient. I don't know if the Syd EK lounge was open at that time or not (no flights would be arriving in/departing for around 8 hours due to the weather delays).