Kiwi Flyer

no arrival lounges at AKL for any airline

given the number of longhaul flights arriving early in the morning (4-7am) it could do with one

if flying onward domestic on Air NZ their domestic lounge includes showers (although these are in high demand early morning)

flyer8000

Hi guys, how long did it take to clear immigration and customs etc. in AKL?
I am leaving for AKL in November on QR920 (STA 05.00) and need to be in the city center by 07.45 at latest (very important). I know it is pretty tight, so I have booked a Blacklane car for 06.00 to be on the safe side as they include a 1 hour wait. Does it sound realistic?

BR. Flyer8000

swingaling

Depends. If you are eligible to use the SmartGate (have a biometric passport from AU/NZ/US/CA/UK) and have nothing to declare at customs, then you could be curbside within 30 minutes or so.

If you have checked bags, something to declare or a non-biometric passport, then it could take an hour. There are a lot of international arrivals early in the morning, so I'd expect potentially long lines at customs.

That said, the drive to the CBD is roughly 45 minutes (possibly a bit longer at rush hour). Getting there by 07:45 is doable, but dependent on a number of factors potentially beyond your control.

flyer8000

Thank you for your answer I am a EU citizen, so unfortunately I will not be able to use the smartgates :/, however 1 hour should be ok. I am crossing my fingers for no major delays. Luckily i am in J, so I can get off the plane quickly and for run for immigrations!

ILikePancakes

I've just been on my first ever flight with QR, OSL-DOH-AKL in J. Oh my goodness... This has to be by a country mile the best experience I have ever had on a plane, it was absolutely amazing! Having previously done Club World before, this was light years better. I'll enjoy the journey back, that's for sure!

Firipu

Don't forget to update your user info to "BAEC Silver" when you get back!

PxC

Thought it was better than Emirates J as well

klausa

haha, we must have been on the same flight then I actually liked service on my CPH-DOH slightly better, but it was stellar on DOH-AKL anyway.

ILikePancakes

I made silver last year. I quite like keeping the bronze tag, keeps that air of mystery

ILikePancakes

We started the epic journey last Friday. Everything was absolutely lovely. Nothing was too much hassle on either leg and they really pampered us. What was night and day for us compared to BA was the food. Both being vegetarians, you play food roulette with BA, do you hope they've got the pasta available, or do you put down lacto ovo vegetarian and get presented with bland chickpeas. The food offerings we got, wow. Just wow.

toothy

Think I was on the same flight. Agree on the food, it was excellent. Was disappointed by the seats though. MAN-AKL (A330) the cubby hole to fit your feet only worked turned one way and I expected the 772 to turn into a fully flat bed. Was flat at an angle rather than fully going flat to the seat in front (preferred it to the A330 though). I slept ok ish, but the seat reminded me of the Air Asia X seat! In some ways I prefer the BA Club seat in that it's fully flat.

I was also surprised at the number of people having dinner straight away and sleeping, rather than staying awake to NZ time. That's what Mrs Toothy and I did and it worked with pretty much no jet lag. Was just a bit frustrating that when we were trying to sleep others were having food. Proper first world problems!!

T

henry999

I realise that the flightpath can vary, slightly or significantly, on any given day but looking at the Great Circle Mapper it appears that this route (i.e, DOH-AKL) passes near to Uluru (Ayers Rock). For those of you who have taken this flight: were you able to see it?

Any other notable landmarks visible from the air?

TIA.

b74l

i can tell u about my experience here

i will also say that inbound to AKL over Australia ..at least in the winter months will be all dark . Westbound ex AKL will be sunset-ish over Tasman Sea and most of east Australia

henry999

Thanks a lot. We will be going in the middle of summer (29 Dec) and in playing around with the nice HourWorld program it looks to me like it will get light somewhere around Kerala / Tamil Nadu or Sri Lanka and dark again near Alice Springs. A flightpath from Port Hedland to Sydney would be pretty close to Uluru, so that's encouraging.

Grace B

I flew this route a couple of months ago, and from memory, the flight passed way south of Uluru, almost over Adelaide and Melbourne. Depends on where the good winds are blowing, so it may be a little difficult to predict unless you are a professional flight planner and aeronautical meteorologist.

And it was very dark over Aussie and NZ, as it would be with the flight arriving into AKL at 5:30 am