Peter de Graaf flies aboard Air New Zealand NZ123 Auckland to Melbourne.
The plane: A Boeing 777-300.
Class: Economy/The Works.
Flight time: The scheduled 8.30am take-off was delayed by 30 minutes due to the late arrival of an earlier flight. The crew made up for it in the air, however,landing bang on time at 10.35am local time.
My seat: 34A. Due to impractically long legs and a desire to arrive ready for a hiking holiday, rather than contorted in origami-like fashion, I forked out an extra $20 for an emergency exit seat immediately behind Premium Economy. I opted for the "window seat" not realising seat 34A is a window seat without a window. It turns out the window is in the emergency door almost a metre in front of the seat, so when you're buckled in you can't see out. However, I did get my money's worth of leg room, I could've parked a small car between my seat and the bulkhead.
Fellow passengers: Mostly ex-pat Kiwis heading home to Melbourne or Kiwis holidaying in the Lucky Country.
How full: Chocka.
Entertainment: The standard Air New Zealand entertainment system but with the screen folded into the armrest. Not a huge range of current movies but some treats you can only get on the national carrier, such as a te reo music channel and 10 playlists of alternative Kiwi music.
Service: This is the bit Air New Zealand does so well. Super-friendly, informal and helpful, without the obsequiousness of some full-service airlines. Safety video: The Bay of Islands-filmed video from last summer starring a bunch of sporting stars, Shorty actors and eccentric Northlanders. The best, most quintessentially Kiwi safety clip made.
Food and drink: Scrambled eggs, sausage, muffin and fruit salad served an hour into the flight.
Toilets: Perfectly adequate and still clean by the time we got to Melbourne.
Landing: Arrived at the tail end of Melbourne's biggest storm in years, which made for a bumpy landing and screeching of tyres. Still, it was nothing on Wellington, even on a calm day.
Airport experience: Tried three times to self check-in at Auckland but the luggage scanner couldn't read my boarding pass (the printer was running low on ink, apparently).
I had to resort to old-school human intervention to get my bag on the flight. In security the e-gates had crashed leading to long queues for passport control.
The bottom line: A painless, pleasant way to get to Melbourne. Just don't expect a window if you're paying extra for window seat 34A.
