While I arrived in Auckland, my destination was Wellington which is about an hour away. Instead of flying that night, making for a ridiculously long trip, I opted to stay overnight at the Novotel Auckland and catch a flight to Wellington in the morning. The Novotel is across the street from the international terminal.
It's nice hotel but a typically expensive nice airport hotel at about $200 a night.
On a beautiful winter morning you couldn't beat the view of this NZ 787 racing down Auckland's only runway.
Air New Zealand A320 Economy Class AKL-WLG / AKL Air New Zealand Domestic Lounge
JetStar A320 Economy Class WLG-AKL Emirates A380 Business Class AKL-BNE / AKL Emirates Lounge Qantas B737 Business Class BNE-SYD / BNE Priority Pass Lounge American Airlines B777 First Class SYD-LAX / SYD Qantas First Class Lounge Virgin America A320 First Class LAX-ORD
Auckland's domestic terminal is about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. Check-in was done via mobile app, bag tagged, dropped and I was at the lounge in no time. I was traveling on a paid $67 economy ticket to WLG. Because I'm Star Alliance Gold I had lounge access. Otherwise you must be a paid Koru member. The lounge was large, had a barista in the back as well as reserved seats, for someone other than me.
And another impressive spread in an Air New Zealand lounge!
Air New Zealand's domestic routes are mostly flown by single class A320's. These planes have been around awhile.
You can get these domestic flights to Wellington for $50-$75 using the Air New Zealand website with your location set to New Zealand. If set to US be prepared to pay lots more.
You can pay extra to sit up front but there isn't anything special like extra room or no one in the middle seat. Just the luxury of getting on/off earlier than most.
Did I mention these aircraft were getting old?
Gotta love the original A320 drop down monitors.
Off to Wellington. Get a window seat.
A bottle of water was today's amenity and in a few minutes we were approaching WLG.
Welcome to Middle of Middle Earth.
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Verdict
Air New Zealand
3.8/10
Cabin4.0
Cabin crew5.0
Entertainment/wifi3.0
Meal/catering3.0
Air New Zealand Koru Lounge - Domestic
7.0/10
Comfort6.0
Meal/catering8.5
Entertainment/wifi5.0
Services8.5
Auckland - AKL
7.5/10
Efficiency7.5
Access7.5
Services7.5
Cleanliness7.5
Wellington - WLG
7.6/10
Efficiency8.5
Access7.0
Services7.0
Cleanliness8.0
Conclusion
This report is about as long as the flight. Don't let the ratings fool you. For 50 bucks I'd take this flight everyday of the week. Value rating: 10! But to my surprise, Jetstar crushes the competition. That report is next.
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#12 out of 94 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings.
94 reviews
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