Review of Qantas flight from Auckland to Sydney in Economy

The background for this flight can be found in the JFK-Auckland flight report. QF4 is actually one flight, New York-Auckland-Sydney, but passengers need to get off the plane and go through security before getting back on in Auckland. I have an Australian passport but for most nationalities people also need to get a visa for New Zealand.

Because of the delay on the flight from JFK, the layover in Auckland was tightened a bit and it was meant to be just about an hour turnaround. Thankfully security was fairly quick and nothing had to be taken out, the whole process took maybe 10 minutes and there was still some time until boarding.
International departures this morning, including a lot of Sydney flights!

There was a great view of the apron from the terminal, even just while walking towards the gate.

I really love the Air New Zealand livery. It's simple but beautiful.
And here is Great Southern Land (VH-ZNA), a 787-9 a bit under 8 years old that brought us from New York and will keep going to Sydney. Sorry for all the reflections.

I'm writing this at my desk, with a model of VH-ZNA on the shelf above me. I've had it for a few years and it was a pure coincidence that I got the same plane on this flight.

But back to real planespotting, there was an Air New Zealand A321neo (ZK-OYB) in the all-black Star Alliance livery.

And a contrasting all-white Air NZ 777, ZK-OKU, which pushed back a little while later.

The boarding time got pushed back 10 minutes. It was never realistic for it to be so early.

Before boarding started, they announced how the group boarding system would work and said that the boarding pass wouldn't scan if it wasn't your group's time to board yet. I'm not sure if that was true but it would definitely encourage people to follow the system either way.
The next announcement was that group 1 would be boarding soon. By this point about half the waiting passengers were already in line, and when they announced that group 1 boarding had started about half of the remaining passengers lined up.
I was in Group 4 so it took a few minutes longer.

Last bit of planespotting while going into the gate.

There was a fresh crew onboard, I believe all Kiwis. They were cheerful and friendly with their welcomes, as the first crew had been.
These are the premium economy seats. Looks like a great premium economy product and actually significantly better than economy, which often isn't the case.

And the economy cabin. Only 19 rows of economy, a very premium-heavy aircraft.

Bulkhead row.

A notable absence of pillows and blankets, which were cleared out from the last flight… though for some reason there were a few in the overhead bin.

My seat. No fancy designs or colors on these seats but they do look welcoming, somehow.

Lots of storage space including a device holder, plus USB-A and AC charging.

Menu and safety card in the seatback pocket - no sickness bag, for some reason.

Personal vents and overhead lights, in addition to the smaller light in the seat next to the USB port.

The Qantas 787 seats also have an interesting feature that I discovered on the last flight, a footnet which folds up into the seat.

There was a lot of sun so there are some weirdly angled photos here to avoid reflections.

Entertainment selection was the same as on the last sector, but there was a menu which wasn't available before. At least my meal had only one side, not two, and there was no hot drink and biscuit service.

Excellent entertainment selection, it was more than enough for the 17 hours JFK-AKL and obviously plenty for this as well.
Despite this being an Auckland-Sydney flight, the US DOT rules that forbade congregating anywhere on the plane was announced again. Then the special place safety video.

Finally we pushed back, passing mostly Air NZ planes along the way.

When I started writing this I realized that the majority of the pictures are of the views out of the window, so sorry about that but also the views were just so stunning that I can't help it.
Even from the airport there were some nice views…

…but as we took off…

…it just kept getting better.

That's the airport there!

Heading towards open sea.

And all of Auckland, with the skyline in the distance.

Turning back to the Tasman Sea.

Just look at those tiny little waves.

There goes New Zealand!

Ok, back to the flight 😅
There was water dripping out of the ceiling onto the empty middle seat, quite a lot of it.

Service began soon after departure from Auckland.

They hadn't cleaned the tray tables between legs.

Breakfast began with bottles of water.

Special meals, including mine, were served first.

This is what it looked like inside.

It tasted much better than it looked. I'm not even sure what most of it was but it tasted amazing, almost painfully hot but everything was very tasty and definitely one of the best meals I've been served on a flight. I could have had another one.
I'm not sure why there was so much packaging, though. The muffin came inside a package that was wrapped in a plastic bag. 

I was already finished eating by the time the beverage cart came around, I got lemonade.

Nothing much happened for the rest of the flight. The snack pantries hadn't been restocked from the last leg so this was just a normal trans-Tasman hop.

The crew handed out brownies as a second service and water afterwards. I couldn't eat the brownies since they had eggs, but it was a nice touch for everyone else.

The Australian government biosecurity video was played.

Not long before landing my screen stopped working properly. The sound stopped working, then started again briefly before stopping, then the screen froze completely. The show restarted by itself but the sound didn't come back. I tried the middle seat headphones, that didn't change anything. Then I tried the middle seat screen and it worked for a little while, then the sound started cutting out as well, though if I put the volume up and then down it fixed it for a couple of minutes before malfunctioning again. It wasn't a problem with the show itself, just with the screen, and luckily it only happened then and not on earlier the JFK-AKL sector because no working entertainment for 17 hours would have been a massive issue then.
Very interesting view of the sunlight's reflection in the water and the clouds.

Soon the crew came around to collect rubbish and UNICEF donations, and then we were coming into Sydney with more incredible views.
The first view of Australia!

Sydney CBD in the distance and the Opera House barely visible.

We turned away and started heading southwards.

The Sydney suburbs end very aprubtly.

Angling back.

Finally flying over land.

Almost there…

Welcome to New South Wales! I made it through the (almost) 23 hour flight/trip!
Along with the general announcements the captain welcomed us to Gadigal Country, usually it's just a generic acknowledgment of the traditional custodians so it was nice that he was more specific.

That actually looks like a nice little beach.

The plane taking off is a Qantas A330 in a OneWorld livery.

One of several Qantas 737s.

And QantasLink Q400s.

Lots of international carriers as well.

Dash 8 taking off and AirAsia taxing away in front of the skyline.

I love how much detail the map showed.

Suddenly tons of water started dropping, though slightly further ahead from where it had been falling before. Literally spraying down every few seconds.

We had to wait a while for a gate, apparently because of apron congestion and because they had to clear some debris.
Eventually parked next to several other Qantas international planes and one lonely Garuda.

The neighbor was Waltzing Matilda, VH-ZNB. I assume that would have been the next delivered Qantas 787 after our own VH-ZNA.

Everyone rushed to get up though it was still more than five minutes until the gate was opened.
At least I could get another picture of the seats.

And premium economy…

And business.

The jetbridge was absolutely filthy.

Great views of some of the A380s on the way to immigration. This one is VH-OQH, named after Reginald Ansett, the founder of Ansett Airlines.

A reminder that this is Sydney.

Immigration took barely a minute with the e-gates, there was no line.
The baggage claim had both New York and Sydney mentioned.

Back in Australia!

Though not in Sydney for long, only one night before going to Uluru, which I'll cover in the next flight report.
Thanks for reading.