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AUCKLAND to CHRISTCHURCH (AKL-CHC) on Qantas 737-300
After a horrendous run of delays and cancellations flying Qantas within New Zealand in 2007, I had switched all my domestic flying over to Air New Zealand. However this day I had many hours to get to Christchurch before my onward flight, so I decided I had nothing to lose by flying Qantas again. This would also give me a chance to see the many changes they'd made since my previous domestic in NZ flight on them. I carefully picked a flight that gave a good safety margin for delays and was operated by a 737-400. Readers of this report will recognise that means a business class seat is assured thanks to my status and Qantas' practice of not allowing passengers to pre-allocate seats before check-in. So I was disappointed to note a couple of days before departure that the flight had been switched to a 737-300. Still, at least some of these aircraft also have business class seats, and seem to more often get used on AKL-CHC-AKL runs than other routes so I was not without hope of still getting a business class seat. At 23 hours and 50 minutes before departure I logged in and checked in online. I could tell straight away from the seat map that we were due to be on a 737-300 without business class seats. Nonetheless I selected a suitable forward seat just in case of a last minute a/c swap. At the airport I tried out the quick-check machines for the first time (on QF in NZ, I've used them on other airlines and also on QF in Australia before). Last time I flew QF domestically the machines had just been installed but had not yet been switched on. The machine did not accept my FF card, but allowed me to type in my name and select the flight - pulling up my record correctly. I was pleased to see that, like the Air NZ quick check machines, you can still use it even if already checked in online. This allowed me to check if I still had an empty seat alongside (yes), if there had been an a/c swap (no). I didn't notice an option to change the FF to another programme but may have missed it or perhaps like the Air NZ machines it is configured to only allow change of FFP where you haven't previously checked in? (This makes sense for it cuts down the possibilities for fraud.) I couldn't improve on my seat and the machine spat out a thermal boarding pass. Security was open so I went into the lounge and was warmly welcomed back. I grabbed a coffee and went to my usual spot. I had enough time before the flight to check my email and FT. Boarding was called a little early I thought, at about 20 minutes prior to departure, with a final call in 5 minutes. I boarded with the final call. Someone was in my seat - they hadn't realised the letters corresponded to a particular seat! So much for an empty seat alongside or blocking for status. That at least seems unchanged from my earlier experiences - OLCI results in an empty middle seat less often for status pax :( Yes there were plenty of empty middle seats further back. We pushed back on time. The announcements before the safety briefing referred to cityflyer service. This is largely a branding exercise. While there are some improvements on peak hour weekday flights, off peak and in weekends it is not much better than it was. We get a choice between an apple and a toasted sandwich. There are lots of heated toasted sandwiches spare and so a second run through the cabin is done, just before the second run through for tea and coffee. IFE is a short travel show (on California it seems) followed by My Family (which I'd already seen on Air NZ trans-tasman flights). There was no view outside - due to the poor weather. We only saw the ground on final approach. At least the ride was smooth I suppose. The airbridge was chilly and so I rushed off as fast as I could and headed for the lounge to await an onward flight. So, while some details had changed, the experience wasn't that much different to my flights last year. |
Originally Posted by Kiwi Flyer
(Post 9770901)
AUCKLAND to CHRISTCHURCH (AKL-CHC) on Qantas 737-300
I was pleased to see that, like the Air NZ quick check machines, you can still use it even if already checked in online. I'll be flying on QF AKL/WLG tomorrow afternoon (returning back on NZ WLG/AKL on Monday) so it will be interesting to see if it works then. - James |
It couldn't find the booking from swiping my card. I had to enter my name and select the flight. Whereas on NZ quick check I can bring up the booking post OLCI by swiping my card.
I'll try to remember to check how it works with DJ on my upcoming domestic flights with them. |
CHRISTCHURCH to AUCKLAND (CHC-AKL) on Air New Zealand 737-300 in "improved" economy
The Koru Club has had some minor modifications since my previous visit a few days before. The old business centre is now some extra comfy seats in the alcove. There are some extra stools at just the right height to put on food or drink. A little extension corner behind the "inner lounging area" has opened - it has lots of glass windows so a bit of a zoo :( A new business centre behind reception is still being fitted out. And there was one computer on the big table, with the printer in the corner of the inner lounging area. I wasn't enthused and decided to change my flight to an earlier one. The agent was happy to change me as I was on a fully flexible fare and the earlier flight was only mostly full, not totally full. The usual mid morning food was on offer. Some warm cheesy potato bits, scones, muffins (two or three flavours), biscuits. The usual hot and cold drinks. Boarding was called a few minutes later. I just got the flight changed in time before it was closed. On the way to the gate next door I noticed the aircraft had the green Air NZ Holidays decal, thus it was one of the first few a/c with the improved economy seating in the forward rows. See this thread on NZ forum for more info. As a late switching passenger I didn't get my usual seat in the first couple of rows, and thus didn't get the full benefits of the extra few inches of seat pitch. Still, the extra 1" at my row was enough to make the flight a bit more comfortable. As a weekend flight the catering was a choice of a small bag of casava crisps, lollies (pineapple lumps IIRC) or dried banana pieces. Tea, coffee or water. We left a few minutes late but made up time en route to arrive on time. |
AUCKLAND to CHRISTCHURCH (AKL-CHC) on Air New Zealand 737-300 in economy
Another of the rare fog-bound early mornings at AKL. Check in was closed for all flights when I arrived and already there were crowds landside - many of whom would have arrived on the overnight flights from SFO, LAX, PER, etc. As I had OLCI'ed and printed out the pdf boarding pass months ago at time of booking, and had no bags to check I could head straight through a deserted security to the lounge. Security asked if I had Koru Club access - presumably they were stopping everyone else (as there is no check in airside other than inside the lounge, anyone without lounge access who was affected by cancellations or misconnections would need to get seen to landside). I was welcomed back and waved in even before I had a chance to produce my boarding pass. I could see the question before she moved her lips - weren't you here yesterday morning also? Why yes, I was. Fortunately I hadn't booked the early morning flight so I did not need to use the lounge check in to sort things out. Instead I grabbed a computer and watched the lounge steadily fill as flight after flight was cancelled. The hot breakfast on offer was some horrid looking sausages and baked beans. Otherwise cereal (choice of a couple different ones), fruit, toast, condiments, ham & cheese. One of the 2 coffee machines was broken :( The fog started clearing earlier than a couple of weeks ago, after just a few hours. Thus less than a dozen cancellations although many subsequent flights were delayed. My flight was basically on time. Given the earlier cancellations I was astounded to find the flight wasn't totally full when the FA let me know there was a spare row down the back on offer if I wanted to switch. The inflight service was as normal (offer of the 3 types of snacks plus tea coffee or water) although rushed more than usual - the rubbish was collected about 35 minutes into the 1 hour 20 minute flight. I'm not sure why but the usual IFE of kiwi trivia questions was turned off at top of descent and replaced by someone skiing down various hillsides (looked like somewhere in USA or Canada rather than NZ). As there are no headset and I missed seeing the title screen I am not sure what it was about. We arrived slightly late. |
HAMILTON to WELLINGTON (HLZ-WLG) on Air New Zealand ATR 72-500 in economy class
I had printed my boarding pass out earlier but used the *G/Koru check in line to get the code for the lounge. Stop by at the stationery shop en route to pay the $5 departure fee (the dispensing machines required credit or NZ issued debit card). Since I was last at Hamilton airport the new lounge (now 10 months old) has opened upstairs. This is in the newer bach style. It is bigger than the old lounge downstairs, but with the extra walls and amenities inside somehow feels more crowded - almost claustrophobically so. There are a couple of computers and with a few minutes to kill before boarding I grab a beer and hop online to check my messages. Boarding is called and we traipse downstairs. About half the lounge guests remain - they were on later flights. First the departure fee receipt is scanned - what an absurd waste of money as much of the fee collected must be spent on administration/collection fee (I presume the stationery shop doesn't do it for free) and staffing. Then a second pause at the gate to get my boarding pass scanned. It has stopped raining since I arrived, for which I'm glad as I'd only just dried out properly from the earlier walk across the tarmac. The flight was about 90% full. No spare seat for me this time. After takeoff the 2 cabin crew got busy. First run with the water pottles. Then another handing out the cups for hot drinks plus a basket with 2 or 3 different mini-biscuits (and sugar and milk). Then a few runs with hot drinks - coffee started from the front and tea from the rear. With a rear door to board I was sitting in the second to last row and thus had a long wait before I got my coffee. I had to then drink it quickly before they collected the rubbish as we descended. Another final run through with the boiled sweets. Unfortunately no view en route other than a minute from take off and the final few minutes after we flew over the harbour to land to the south. We arrived on time. The landing was smooth considering nearly lost my carryon to the snatches of strong wind on disembarking. I hurried, as best I could, into the terminal. I must try to remember (and I should know better by now) that newspapers (or anything loose) in hand in Wellington when requiring a walk across the tarmac is not a good idea. |
WELLINGTON to AUCKLAND (WLG-AKL) on Air New Zealand 737-300 in economy class with Koru Hour service
A quick report, mainly on the differences to my previous reports. The Wellington Koru Club is still undergoing renovations and so was a bit cramped even on this weekday holiday. For the first time in a while on a domestic flight in NZ the load was fairly light. I had a whole row to myself. As a weekday evening flight we got a small plate of 2 cheeses, 3 crackers and 3 grapes (I did say it was small!), plus a free glass of wine (2 whites and 2 reds on offer - all rather nice for economy) or soft drink. Service was done rather quickly - the rubbish was cleared before we'd gone 25 minutes into the flight. Despite this, no boiled sweet on descent. A small delay at the terminal while an airbridge operator was found. |
FLYING TOUR OF NEW ZEALAND
All the current domestic routes are listed below, with links to reports on a selection of those flights. I've flown almost all domestic routes operated by NZ (Air New Zealand), QF (Qantas) and DJ (Pacific Blue aka Virgin Blue) - missing just one NZ route and two DJ routes (both of which I've flown on other airline(s)). QF has a limited route network of AKL-WLG/CHC/ZQN, CHC-ROT/ZQN. DJ has an even more limited route network of AKL-WLG/CHC, WLG-CHC (and CHC-DUD from July 2008). From/To Auckland
From/To Hamilton
From/To Wellington
From/To Nelson
From/To Christchurch
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AUCKLAND to WELLINGTON on Pacific Blue 737-800 in economy class
OLCI (on line check in) for Pacific Blue opens up 24 hours before departure, but as I wanted to check in for all my flights at once I waited a bit longer before checking in. The webpage was extremely slow to load - it took me nearly 30 minutes to check in and PYOBP (print your own boarding pass). Just when I was about to give up I got my BPs. Unlike NZ or QF there is no handy pdf to save to hard drive or email to print out later, but at least it allowed multiple flights on the same page (also unlike NZ or QF). I headed to the airport a bit earlier than I'd like to as the airbus has changed both its timetable and routing. The routing is not as good (less stops, and most of these are on Queen Street) but the schedule is better - greater frequency in the middle of the day, with slightly earlier start and slightly later finish. So pluses and minuses for me, good for some, not so good for others. At the airport I tried using the quick check machines to see if I could improve my seating, however it would not let me into my record to even view seat maps. Oh well. I got caught up in a horrible queue at security despite the early hour. It seems lots of passengers were stuck overnight at Auckland after fog the previous evening in Christchurch - all the early flights were full with many standby passengers requested to check at the gate if they had made it on or not. By the time I got through, turned right for the Pacific Blue gate lounge area and reached the gate boarding was nearly complete. I noticed I was given a different welcome than that given to the passengers in front of me. I have no tier status with Virgin Blue, but perhaps the gate agent noted my foundation member status? A short walk across the tarmac to the rear of the 2 sets of stairs. Although I'd checked in early, I'd selected a seat well to the rear. Firstly the first 10 rows were off limits to me - not high enough fare or status (yes there are some airlines I have no status with!). Secondly the load looked to be light and so I chose an aisle seat which I thought stood a good chance of an empty middle. Human nature means the forward middle seats fill before the rear middle seats. Sure enough onboard the front half of the aircraft is fairly full while there are plenty of empty seats in the back half. I thought I'd scored a whole row to myself, but the final family to board (at our departure time) took several seats all around me. Still, I had the empty middle seat. |
Apologies for the delay, I was about to miss my flight if I kept typing.
We left a little late, with a fast taxi - I don't mean quick but rather the taxiing speed seemed faster than normal. My seat was comfortable enough, with the same or a bit more legroom than most of the seats on QF and NZ domestically (excepting of course exit row, business class seats and the coming soon space+ zone on NZ). Shortly after takeoff headsets were offered for $2.50. There is no tv show or digiplayers, just some audio channels. Then through with food and drink cart. There weren't too many takers. Not much view today, and anyway I was continually interrupted by the family seated around me - up and down, up and down. It seemed they'd arrived on an international flight and only concluded they'd left a bag at quarantine xray when they couldn't find it by their seats on this domestic flight. But not before disrupting me and others nearby tearing the place up to look for it. They also seemed to switch places with each other several times, requiring more up and down to let them out and in. If I'd been hoping to sleep on the flight I would have been mightily annoyed. We circled around and landed from the south. At Wellington Pacific Blue only disembark using an airbridge, no stairs. I wasn't used to how long it takes when sitting this far back :o I had just a few minutes before my next flight and so popped into the Qantas Club to say hi to Blackcloud and anat0l before back to the gate for my next flight. |
PDF writer
Courtesy of fellow FTer LarryU
Use this link to download this free PDF writer: http://www.cutepdf.com/download/CuteWriter.exe It will allow you to "print" to a PDF format in lieu of a printer. You can then print the document whenever you wish. And yes, I have it installed and it does the job saving as a .pdf file. |
Actually I do have a pdf writer on one of my computers, but when I'm checking in on a public computer, or some of my other computers, that is not an option.
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WELLINGTON to CHRISTCHURCH (WLG-CHC) on Pacific Blue 737-800 in economy class
I timed it perfectly, just reaching the gate at the end of the queue. Another wait for a straggler. This time my seating plan didn't work so well, with the aftermath of last night's cancelled flights (and disruption this morning with a/c being in the wrong place overnight) meaning 2 flights got combined and a 100% load instead of the 50% I was expecting. Oh well. No hot drinks offered for sale due to the short flight length but otherwise much the same. Not much snow on the mountains for close to the shortest day - it has been a very mild winter so far. Some early fog had cleared from the city but was lingering not far from the airport. It was below freezing despite being mid-morning, brrrrr. Being near the back I had the stairs to disembark whereas the front half got the airbridge. A short walk across the tarmac and then upstairs into the middle of the airbridge, thus rejoin airside (the same as the gate at the end of the Air NZ jet pier at Auckland, but unlike Pacific Blue at Auckland which comes out landside). |
CHRISTCHURCH to WELLINGTON (CHC-WLG) on Pacific Blue 737-800 in economy class
Pacific Blue uses the same part of the domestic terminal as Qantas, thus when the flight was delayed I headed for the Qantas Club which I can use thanks to my status. According to the lounge staff, QF still plan to reintroduce CHC-WLG but no dates have been given. A couple of Qantas flights came and went. The nice lounge agent let me know there was a further delay to the Pacific Blue flight (which I had determined from the not very user friendly Pacific Blue online arrival and departure page), and that she'd warn me when they were boarding (which she did ^). It was still near freezing (early afternoon) and so I was glad that I boarded late enough that they'd stopped those seating in the rear from going down the stairs onto the tarmac. However, this did make for chaotic boarding as there is not enough room for someone boarding from the rear stairs to easily make their way forward past someone else boarding from the airbridge, at least once a high proportion of aisle seats had been taken. I'm sure this is not very efficient. Another 100% full flight. A nonrev pax was seated in the exit row and had to disembark when the last passenger showed up. We were over an hour late boarding and further delayed on getting out. We then seemed to have some delay before arriving in Wellington despite the theoretically straight in southerly approach, I think due to a lot of takeoffs and landings at the time. We pulled into the end of pier gate, which is used for both international and domestic flights. So, despite having an airbridge we had a convoluted path into the terminal reminiscent of LHR (and commented on as such by an English couple in front of me). Narrow path to a zig-zag ramp down to ground level, down a corridor towards immigration, then along another corridor that ends abruptly at a locked door and forced up some stairs, to finally come out landside half way along the pier. |
WELLINGTON to AUCKLAND (WLG-AKL) on Pacific Blue 737-800 in economy class
Fortunately my onward flight was also late as I didn't want to wait around a few hours until the next flight if I'd misconnected. Unfortunately boarding was already 3/4 complete and so I had no time to do anything other than do a u-turn and double back through security. Another full flight thanks to the earlier disruptions. There were quite a few deadheading FAs onboard also. Not much view en route, although the central volcanoes were clearly visible. We made up time and arrived just a few minutes late. Disembarkation was by forward and rear stairs. |
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