As I promised my kiwi pals, I’m writing this as a testament to Air New Zealand. Flying to the US is always a tortuous business and made more so with advancing years and the fact I almost always have to fly to another country before making the transatlantic hop. Spending anywhere between seven and 11 hours cooped up in a flying missile is not my idea of fun and whenever possible, I try to ease the pain by flying business class. On this occasion, I flew premium economy. It’s not quite as comfortable as biz class but a lot better than cattle class and not nose bleed expensive. At least not with this airline.
Everything from the check in process through to in flight entertainment makes this airline the one to choose. I was carrying a lot of equipment including a video tripod. I had thought it might go in overhead but that wasn’t possible. Even so, the check in lady made an exception to the two pieces in the hold rule for me and even marked it as ‘fragile.’ At the LAX end, the check in lady took the tripod over to baggage handling to check whether it would be allowed in the cabin. Same answer as Heathrow, same exception made. Result. As we started the descent into LA, the captain announced what was happening, noting that there is nothing much of interest to see as we come into LAX. That amused me.
Air NZÂ has a fleet of 747-400′s that fly Heathrow to Auckland via Los Angeles. The 747 is an aging bird but the upstairs cabin is spacious enough to accommodate both biz and prem economy folks with reasonable comfort. The food service was good with the obligatory NZ lamb on the menu and there’s a decent wine choice, served in copious quantities. The star attraction is the wide range of movies to suit all tastes. I consumed four on the two journeys including an excellent two hander starring Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow titled Two Lovers.
Refreshingly, Air NZ both left and arrived on time or earlier – a marked contrast to some airlines I could mention. Finally, if you do choose to use this service then I recommend asking for row 22 – it’s an exit with acres of legspace and makes getting to and fro the bathrooms painless for other passengers.
No amount of pampering can prevent jetlag and on this trip I got two doses. On the outbound I got up early, had breakfast and then suddenly felt incredibly tired, despite having a good night’s sleep and getting about 6 hours sleep on the outbound plane. Five and half hours later I came to, still feeling tired and retired early that night. Two days later and I get it all over again. Ugh! I’m waiting for the day they can teleport us around. Sadly I doubt that will be in my lifetime.
