Sydney Kingsford Smith

The Air New Zealand Koru Club lounge is big, but was not that full. A friendly and helpful agent checks my SEN card and the ticket and told me to take a coffee, relax or use the time and take a shower. I did the last thing and showered – to me one of the nicest things after a long flight. The shower facilites are very nice.

Forty minutes later I headed down again and now there were able to issue the boarding pass. I have no idea why this took so long, but I was able to get seat 01 A.

I relaxed in the lounge, had some coffee and watched the push back the A 380, which left as flight SQ 220 bound for Singapore during my time in the lounge.

Boarding of flight NZ 104 begun late to the late arrival of the plane. So the boarding, scheduled for 11:00 (the boarding pass had 10:30 printed) began at 11:15 and the gate agent apologized three times for the delay. Soon boarding begun with Business Class, Star Gold and Koru members.

16 February 2008
SYD - AKL
[Sydney – Auckland]
NZ 104 (Air New Zealand); Boeing 767-300
Gate 63
11:30 – 16:30 [effective 11:50 – 16:45]
Business Class
Seat 01 A

As I entered the plane I was friendly greeted by two flight attendants. I stored my belonging in the small overhead compartment. Personally I think the overhead bins of the 767 are one of the smallest among the airplane I have been on so far.

I was offered a choice of pre departure drink, orange juice, water or champagne. Of course I took the champagne. My jacket was taken and a flight attendant hung it in the wardrobe.

The cabin filled with passengers boarding the plane. Everybody had to pass the business class cabin. Thus made it a bit complicated for the flight attendants to go around and offer predeparture drinks and store carry on or collect jackets.

Menus were distributed on the ground and headphones were lying on the seat. Blankets were either on the seat or in the overhead bin.

The safety demonstration was done by the flight attendants, no video was shown.

We pushed back at 11:45 and rolled to our runway. Ten minutes after push back had begun, we were in the air. I was surprised that the captain turned the seat belt sign off quite fast. We had not left the ground for more than two minutes. The flight attendants jumped in the action but requested passengers to remain seated until we had reached the cruising altitude.

The purser came around and introduced himself. The passengers were addressed by name and we were asked what we liked to have as main course for lunch. Air New Zealand offered on this flight of less than 3 hours a full three course lunch menu with adjacent wine and even a printed menu. Okay, it was only a leaflet, but anyway. On the most European or American Carrier you will either not get anything to eat but a salad in Business Class nor you will get a printed menu. But Air New Zealand is competing with the Asian Airlines and therefore had a remarkable better service than the European or American Carriers. I was really impressed by this.

Anyway a first beverage round started after 25 minutes in-flight with kroepoek. I decided to drink no further alcohol and opted for a Tonic Water. The tray tables were laid with linen.

Here is the written menu for this short flight

The first course was brought 15 minutes later on a tray. Again only plastic knives rather than such out of metal were used. We had the choice of different sorts of bread, garlic bread was offered as well as baguette or dark bread. Olive Oli was offered, too. The water, everybody got for lunch, too, was refilled frequently as well as the wine. I got another can of Tonic Water.

The food was tasty, definitively better than on United and close to the quality of the food TG or OZ offered in C, but the presentation was not as good as on TG or OZ. But service was friendly and very relaxed, so nothing to complain after a flight with United.

The main course was okay, the snapper of small size, but tasty.

Trays were collected and the dessert was brought individually to the passengers who had finished their main course, Tea or coffee was offered although.

The lunch service had lasted more or less the whole flight and in the last 45 minutes we got also the immigration forms for New Zealand.

The cabin was prepared for landing and we got our jackets back. Although the crew did not attach the boarding passes to the jackets, everybody got the right jacket back.

During our final approach we had a nice view of downtown Auckland and the surroundings before we touched down at 16:45 local time and reached our gate five minutes later.

I was the second passengers leaving the plane and headed for immigration. Unfortunately the lines were long and it took 35 minutes before I reached the agent. At customs I had to queue another 20 minutes. Altogether it took me nearly 60 minutes before I reached the bus stop after we were at the gate. Luckily I had not to wait very long for the bus to Auckland to arrive. I was in my hotel around 18:30.

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