Kiwi Flyer

AUCKLAND to SYDNEY (AKL-SYD) on LAN A340-300 in business class

After my shower I grabbed a couple of drinks and spent the rest of the transit checking messages. The onward flight was further delayed with a significantly longer than scheduled transit time in excess of 2 hours.

This flight was even fuller than the one into Auckland so I returned to my allocated seat, before swapping with another passenger so they could sit with their partner.

We had views of the city before we looped around to the west.

Breakfast was served. A stodgy omelette, croissant, fruit, juice, tea or coffee. Very uninspiring so I held off for a late breakfast in the lounge in Sydney.

I was still rather tired so I slept a bit more.

For a change we had a straight in approach. Having missed the early rush meant we got a gate reasonably close to immigration and transfers - LAN often seems to get a stand at SYD.

Blackcloud

Enjoyed your report. I was holding off as I try to read your reports from start to finish in a single sitting.
I like how you took it slow at the start and also the concern as you battled the immigration services.

Kiwi Flyer

That wasn't something I was aiming for, just a result of airline schedules. The rush at the end was due to my need to be somewhere on a fixed date.

Kiwi Flyer

SYDNEY to AUCKLAND (SYD-AKL) on LAN A340-300 in business class

As I was the first to tramsfer security, and the only passenger there at the time, I again got the "random" test. The 2 officers doing the test and doing the block to make sure I do not evade it remembered me from last time and comiserated about the non-randomness of it. Maybe I'm starting to get through to these people?

As I did not have a boarding pass and it is a LAN flight not a Qantas one I had to stop at transfer desk to check in. That done I changed some money at Travelex - what a rip off (bid-offer spread more than 20% plus 10% commission) before heading up to the lounge.

The bouncer welcomed me back with new year wishes, and as usual with this guy I did not need to show my boarding pass or FF card (for some reason status doesn't print on the LAN boarding passes issued at SYD).

I had hoped to grab a breakfast but our late arrival, fairly short turnaround and LAN's habit of boarding early meant I would not have time. Instead I grabbed a coffee and juice and caught up on some messages. Boarding was called shortly thereafter.

Another full flight with more op-ups. Lunch was served, a toasted sandwich & some fruit. Yes, pathetic really. Most airlines on trans-tasman have better in economy. Oh well the chardonnay went down okay.

We arrived back in Auckland a little late, landing from the west.

This concludes the flights on this trip around mostly the southern hemisphere. I have some comparisons and summary comments to make in a new post.

AMRivlin

Great Report and journey. i keep my menus but never retype them! That is a lot of effort. A+

I have a few curiosities: Did you stop in Amman or Aden? What was the purpose of transiting in Aden, beyond an interesting tale with immigration?

Kiwi Flyer

The purpose of Aden was to go somewhere I haven't yet gone, and maximise mileage within Europe (as defined in the xONEx RTW rules this includes the Middle East). I didn't have time to stop over. The original airline schedule when I booked may have given me enough time for a quick look around.

Blackcloud

This must be a trip report full of records for you.
Most times through a single country's immigartion service in one day, 5.
Most times to receive an involuntary downgrade.
First RTW without any upgrades. etc.
Good read and I cannot wait to catch up with you to talk about it.^

Thai-Kiwi

Blackcloud echoes my thoughts - we really must get KF to pause in WLG and have a full debrief......

Kiwi Flyer

Summary of security arrangements

Maybe the corner is turning, or maybe I got lucky with the countries visited and transitted on this trip. There was less intrusive security than has been the norm for the past few years, but still some exceptions.

NZ international - liquids baggy

Australia international - liquids baggy, plus "random" explosives check for international to international transit

UK - liquids baggy and shoes off. T5 also had the horrible tray system which caused delays.

Nowhere else paid any attention to liquids - Argentina, South Africa, Namibia, Mauritius, Jordan, Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay and Bolivia.

I did not pass through any security at Yemen (only entered immigration area but not beyond) or Brazil (remained on aircraft).

Agriculture/customs xray checks at New Zealand and Chile. I bypassed the one at Australia.

Kiwi Flyer

Summary of service

Qantas was okay on some flights, but the total ignoring of drink requests between meals on the flight to Johannesburg reminded me once again how erratic the service quality is on QF.

Comair was poor, which came as a surprise to me. Most reviews on FT that I'd read were favourable. Poor in the air, and poor handling of the downgrades.

By contrast my British Airways (longhaul) flights were the easily best I've had yet on BA. However this merely was to the level expected (and reported by others) and is still not near "top of class".

Royal Jordanian were fantastic - up with the best I've ever experienced. Okay 4 flights is not a big sample, but I sure will be trying to fly them again. Perhaps a bit overeager to help in Aden (but his heart was certainly in the right place).

LAN were also disappointing on board. While some individual crew members were good, on the whole the in air service was indifferent to poor. Again, very badly handled downgrades have left a sour note. At least Comair offered to compensate albeit have not delivered on my expectations, whereas LAN refused point blank to even consider there is an issue.

On the whole, the service was disappointing. The "find" of Royal Jordanian was the only real bright point about it.

vflyer

Hi there

Great TR.

I find RJ great, and often do MEL-DXB on EK then DXB-AMM-LHR on RJ, it's a bit longer and more expensive, but I ride airplanes just for the fun of it, and am not normally in a hurry to get anywhere

vflyer

AMRivlin

And would you recommend *A or ST, or just flying different birds?

Virgins system connects most major hubs now...

I think with NZ, SQ you can get to almost every business capital.

Kiwi Flyer

Someone pointed out to me the good service on the flight to Buenos Aires may have been related to my seat being selected for a survey. As this was my last BA (British Airways) flight it is the one that sticks most clearly in mind. Perhaps FFPs could add to the profile options for preferred seats a box to tick if you want to do a survey each flight?

Kiwi Flyer

Depends on what you want. For this trip, I could not have done a similar itinerary on *A or ST due to the different alliance coverages.

briantoronto

Interesting thought. I filled out a survey NRT > HKG on ANA (in J), and all I noticed there extra on the service was a deeper bow when being thanked for filling out the survey.

Nice report on LAN, I had a choice booking LAN or TACA in May when I am in Peru...

-Brian