Review of Qantas flight from New York to Auckland in Economy

There is a bit of background in the Melbourne-Nadi flight report about how Fiji Airways was chosen for the trip from Australia to the US, and Qantas for the way back. Cash fares on Qantas were reasonable from most US cities, but then they shot up by a few hundred dollars before anything was booked. However, on American Airlines it was 40k miles from all the major US airports to anywhere in Australia that's one flight away from Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane (Kangaroo Island also worked even though it required an extra flight).
This meant that it made sense to go somewhere that's usually expensive to get to in Australia, at least from Perth, and the two places that I mostly looked at were Uluru and Tasmania. The final decision was to do Uluru but I wanted to get QF4 from JFK which didn't work very well with Uluru layover and timings wise. In the end it was booked with Qantas miles instead (55k) JFK-AKL-SYD and the rest of the flights paid for with money. Not a great price, and AA 40k all the way to Uluru was better price wise, but the flights weren't. AA miles are also a lot more useful than Qantas miles in my experience and the same Qantas flight is often half the price with AA miles instead of Qantas.
The final routing:

Technically JFK-AKL-SYD is one flight, but because of the stop and sort-of-transfer in Auckland I'm reviewing it as two. Each sector was also fairly different in terms of service and it felt a lot more like two flights than one.
The entire routing is the seventh-longest direct, one-stop flight in the world by great circle distance. The JFK-Auckland sector is the seventh-longest nonstop flight in the world. It beats San Francisco-Singapore to become my longest ever flight!
A few hours before the flight it got delayed by two hours. There have been delays almost every day on QF4 and while it wasn't a problem at all, Qantas should have figured out a way to have the flight depart on time by now.
After dropping off the rental car there was a train to the terminal.

The airport was within view from the train platform.

There were great views of the planes from the train ride, including Great Southern Land, or VH-ZNA, the 7.7 year old 787-9 that would be doing the trip over to Auckland and Sydney this evening. I've actually got a model of VH-ZNA on a shelf above my desk in Perth and so while I was hoping for a special livery plane, this was cool as well.

Plenty of other international representatives in JFK.

The economy check-in was completely empty and there was one family checking in at the business counter.

The counters also didn't have any staff.

There was someone at the service desk who did the check-in, she said everyone was already done. It was only a little under two hours before departure so most people must not have noticed the delay.

It was cool being able to see planes from the check-in area. These are (left to right) Air New Zealand, Royal Air Maroc, Air France, and ITA Airways.

Now, security was insane. The line was massive and moving very slowly (this picture is just a small fraction of the total line). There was a screen showing wait time that said, "Under 35 minutes." A few minutes later it went to 40, then down to 35 and hovered between 30 and 35 for the rest of the time. TSA Precheck was between under 10 and 20 minutes.

I checked my watch after finally getting through and it ended up being 46 minutes. It didn't help that around half the security counters weren't even open. It was only 10 minutes past the beginning of boarding time and like 20 minutes until gate closing time, but they were acting like we were an hour late and announcing names to get everyone to hurry onto the plane. Because of the rush I couldn't get pictures of the plane or anything, but one notable thing was that the signane on the screens was all "Auckland, New Zealand" and I didn't notice any mentions of Sydney.
The crew were all extra friendly with their welcomes and totally relaxed, so I think the rush was just from the ground staff's side.
Nice cabin colors and design (the plane was maybe 80% full with some empty rows so I could get some pictures of the seats).

And here's my seat, for most of the next 23 hours!

A few amenities on the seat itself, which I'll get to later.

The standard screen, tray table, and seatback pocket, plus a storage area (including a device holder-type thing), personal light, and USB-A charging port.

I really liked this little area, the smaller light was also good when I didn't want to disturb people by using the main light.

There was, of course, a normal light and air vent.

Along with the USB port there was an AC power socket.

The tray table was foldable.

The normal safety card, magazine, and sickness bag in the seatback pocket. The magazine had a big fold-out route map which I forgot to take a picture of.

Now onto the amenities, starting with the headphones that were wrapped in a UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) donation packet.

Next, the amenity kit. I always like getting amenity kits even though I don't use them that much.

This was a particularly nice amenity kit and it also wasn't just a ziplock plastic or paper pouch that you tear open.

The inside was a bit underwhelming, just a dental kit, eye mask and earplugs, no socks (which I think would be reasonable to include on such a long flight). I also wish the Qantas logo was on the eye mask like Qatar Airways does with theirs, but anyway it was still a nice addition.

And an extremely comfortable pillow and blanket. The blanket even matched the seats!

The headrest was very adjustable and well-cushioned. It was a comfortable seat overall.

While I was looking through everything the captain apologized for the delay, he said he wasn't sure what we'd been told but he can tell us from the horse's mouth it's because of fog in Auckland, and, "being one of the longest routes in the world" it was constrained at times. He also announced a further delay with some people got annoyed with. Someone wondered why we were rushed so much if we still wouldn't be leaving for 25 minutes, and some other people were talking about how they were told boarding was at 8:35, and then at 8:35 they announced the gate was closing in two minutes. I agree with them, why did they need to hurry everyone so much?
There was also an announcement that because of US Department of Transportation rules, on flights to or from the US passengers were not allowed to congregate in areas of the plane, including around the lavatories. I'm not sure what to make of that…
Now, onto the entertainment.

There were some scratches on the screen but they were only that noticeable when it was darker or off.

All different types of IFE.

Tons of movies, the selection was a lot better than I remembered from Qantas.

And TV shows as well.

Also lots of audio.

And a special kids section.

The games section was the only one small enough for me to photograph all the content, and also the only one where they were a bit weak.

The information section was a bit disappointing. The menu didn't work, and the seat features video also didn't work from here, though I did find it elsewhere later and find a feature I didn't know existed - but that was a lot later into the flight.

The moving map was great. It wasn't actually that blurry, this was just my picture.

There was a pre-departure water service.

 The crew chatted to passengers during the service and were very friendly in general. The family behind me had come from Milan (what a journey, even if they were getting off in Auckland!) and had gotten to the gate at 7:10, 10 minutes before the original departure time, only to realize that it had been delayed.
The famous "special place" safety video got played next and it was much shorter than the version I'd watched before, which I didn't realize wasn't actually what was played on the planes.

Finally we pushed back, passing by Prince Faisal bin Al-Hussein, a Royal Jordanian 787-8 in the Discover Petra special livery. I'd flown a different Royal Jordanian 787-8 in businsess from Bangkok to Amman back in December.

Mood lighting for takeoff was turned on, and we took off, Auckland-bound.

Shortly after take-off service began with a full bottle of water, and this was followed by customs forms for arrival.

Then there was a beverage service. They had a large selection of drinks, I wanted nothing but Schweppes lemonade.

There were also pretzels with the drink.
A little while later the full dinner service began, starting with special meals.

Not the best presentation on the tray, here's what there was:

The rice cakes, almonds, fruit and butter were all in the bag.

Wooden cutlery.

The Qantas logo was everywhere. Personally I think the more places the logo is the better it is overall.

The meal was great. It tasted good, there was plenty of stuff with all the little sides, and the bag was actually a nice little bag (I kept it).
They were giving bread and more drinks with the main meals, but my row got skipped and I think the ones behind me did as well. Later they served ice cream sandwiches for dessert.

I'm all too used to not being able to eat snacks or desserts like this because they have eggs, so it was a pleasant surprise to discover that this one was eggless, and delicious. The dinner service was excellent overall, it was spaced well over the first couple of hours of the flight and everything tasted good.

And it wasn't even over! After clearing the trays they served hot drinks with Tim Tams. I got hot chocolate. Sadly the ingredients confirmed that Tim Tams hadn't stopped maybe containing eggs.

Pretty nice map honestly.

I happened to notice this interesting feature of the headphones which I haven't seen on any other ones before, it means that they could also be used for phones or regular devices.

I went to the back a little while later. The lavatory was clean, no extra amenities there, though. There was a self-service snack station set up (that alliteration wasn't actually intentional) with plenty of snacks and drinks. It was kept stocked throughout the flight. I used it a lot over the next 13 hours or so, it was a great addition to the service.

The cabin was already dark and stayed dark for most of the flight.

We passed over quite a few cities in the US. This I believe was the outer suburbs of Fort Worth.

There was one water service a little while later.

After that I tried to get some sleep, but it didn't work very well since I couldn't get very comfortable. The seat wasn't particularly uncomfortable or anything but it was just me, I didn't manage to rest much. Just a couple of hours with a lot of waking up in between. My eyes were Qantas red-and-white the next day.
After I woke up, about 8 hours into the flight, they came with meal boxes. I think they were hot snacks or sandwiches or something, like one of the small meals that Qantas serves on domestic flights, or like the second meals generally served on shorter trans-Atlantic flights. Unfortunately there was nothing for special meals. They served water with that, and I got some.

I discovered another feature after watching the seat features video. It's a bit hard to make out because of how dark it was down there, but it was a net-thing that served as a footrest and folded up into the seat, so it didn't take up any legroom. Not quite as comfortable as a normal footrest but much better than nothing.

I wanted to use the snack pantry at the back so I got some cookies (eggless, impressively) and lemonade.

It was a nice little snack, having the snacks available was great - it let people get snacks whenever they wanted since the flight was so long, without having to ask the crew.
I did ask the crew for something a little while later. Just as I was going over one of the flight attendents got up, came over and with a smile and greeting and asked what I wanted. I asked him if they had socks, he said he didn't think so but he could check and he managed to find some. I also asked for a bottle of water, since I'd finished the one they gave earlier on the flight.

The socks were cute and comfortable, though very small and it was a bit of a struggle to get them on. The bottle was the perfect temperature, slightly cool, and it was very helpful having a bottle with me throughout the flight.
There was another big snack run a little while later, though most people were asleep and didn't take anything.
Other than the meal the first trash collection was 10 and a half hours after departure, a bit too long!
Over the next few hours I got snacks a few more times.

A few hours before landing breakfast was served, special meals first.

The main course was a bit better than it looked. It was saffron rice with a lot of strands of saffron and that at least tasted great.

The fruit was very cold, it had been frozen and there were still little pieces of ice inside it.

When the beverage cart came around I got apple juice.

The apple tasted good but inside it was very brown.

Average meal overall. Not bad, though not extraordinary and the dinner was much better. Also I'm not sure what the butter was for since unlike the first meal there wasn't bread.

The few remaining hours were uneventful. The crew went around after the meal talking to passengers about their connections since this flight had been delayed. The snack pantry got packed up, so no more snacks for me.
And then, all of a sudden, our descent into Auckland was announced.

I was almost done with my longest-ever flight. Honestly it just felt like a normal long-haul, I actually wouldn't have minded a few more hours onboard (I'm a weird avgeek like that).
A biosecurity video from the New Zealand Government got played as we drew closer to landing, with the almost-Australian Kiwi accent.

With more lighting on the plane I noticed how dirty it was, some surfaces on planes are often very dirty but this was exceptional.

Getting closer. The crew collected donations from anyone that put coins into the UNICEF packets.

It was completely dark outside. Around 6:30 AM but it could have been the middle of the night with no trace of the sunrise anywhere. The whole 17 hours were at night, which was a shame since there would have been some great views otherwise.

The seatbelt got turned on 6 minutes before landing. It was probably on for less than half an hour the entire flight.

And then we'd touched down! Welcome to Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Finally a dark orange glow touched the horizon as the sun started rising.

The windows were locked for landing (as they were before takeoff, but not during the flight) and more lights got turned on.

See you in a couple of hours, 54F!

Everyone had to get off the plane in Auckland and if continuing to Sydney, go through security and get back on. The crew also changed in Auckland with the JFK-AKL crew a mix of Aussies and Kiwis.

I'll end this report here with the transit experience and flight to Sydney in the next report (that's where the cover photo is from).

Thanks for reading.