MEL to AKL the Roulette wheel and other Scheduling woes

[Christoo]

Hi all,

Just want to vent a bit about my frustrations with the MEL to AKL offerings with Qantas.
Since the codeshare flights with EK hit the back burner there are not a lot of options and not many good ones.

The roulette wheel I spoke of is the J offering, for the same price you could get either:

• Domestic level buisness class (Old style not reclining)
• Sky Bed Mk 1
• New A330 with the really nice compartment style business

And not to put too fine a point on it, but the schedule is garbage:
First flight out gets you in at 1pm
Last flight out departs at 6:50pm getting you in at 00:30

On the return last QF flight out is 18:45 whihc is not so bad, but still doesn't allow for a full days work

What about people who commute?
An 18:50 flight has you at the airport at 16:30 so you lose a chunk of the day.
Last few times I have been forced to book a JQ max fair on flight 217 departing 23:45 arriving 5:30am which is a terrible time to arrive.

Why can't Qantas have decent sleeper services to:
Auckland
Hong Kong
Shanghai
Guangzhou? <- Not the CZ one

Do they not understand their customers?
The USA to AU Sleeper services are awesome.

My ideal would be either a 20:00 departure arriving 01:30 in time for some sleep
Or a 0:100 departure with lay flat J arriving in the morning with showers on arrival.
It seems that they are completely missing the boat by not understanding the work life balance of people these days.

Oh and one more thing!!

IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO SCHEDULE ENOUGH FLIGHTS AND FORCE ME ONTO JQ... AT LEAST HAVE THE DAMNED LOUNGE OPEN UNTIL DEPARTURE.
Even if it is not the first lounge, it is obscene that they don't hold a J lounge open for the last JQ departure.

Much has already been made of the QF AKL lounge offerings, so I will leave that for now.

 

[blackcat20]

You should see the CHC options. Flight now leaves Mel at 7am and not every day (don't even think of going over on a Friday) and the return is around 2pm. You barely get 24 hours on the ground if you go for the 'weekend'.

 

[Christoo]

You should see the CHC options. Flight now leaves Mel at 7am and not every day (don't even think of going over on a Friday) and the return is around 2pm. You barely get 24 hours on the ground if you go for the 'weekend'.

I feel your pain, I do Christchurch often.
I always end up on the JQ flight that departs at 23:55, which I never want to book as arriving anywhere except home at 5:15am is absolutely useless.. Too late to sleep, too early to do anything else. I end up booking a hotel for 3hrs so I can have a shower and lay down.

For the trip home I have to take the JQ flight at 21:00 which sucks because I never ever want to fly Jetstar as I hate them with every fibre of my entire self.
But hey, sometimes you just need to keep the WP bus rolling.

 

[blackcat20]

I feel your pain, I do Christchurch often.
I always end up on the JQ flight that departs at 23:55, which I never want to book as arriving anywhere except home at 5:15am is absolutely useless.. Too late to sleep, too early to do anything else. I end up booking a hotel for 3hrs so I can have a shower and lay down.

For the trip home I have to take the JQ flight at 21:00 which sucks because I never ever want to fly Jetstar as I hate them with every fibre of my entire self.
But hey, sometimes you just need to keep the WP bus rolling.

We've defected to VA for our next visit

 

[NZflygirl]

Have to agree, I've noticed Qantas have done some rescheduling and it's affected my choice to fly them. Can't believe that JQ flight is the last flight out of Oz now to NZ.

 

[mannej]

I think you may find that skybed is no longer a possibility unless they put a 747/380 on the route, and they are 100% MkII

 

[RichardMEL]

Well that's quite the rant. Not unjusified mind you.

To be clear EK pulled the AU-NZ tags, bar SYD-CHC rather than QF ending the codeshare, and it's not like those timings were that much better than what QF offers - in the winter perhaps it was 0710-1245 which meant an afternoon of work or whatever in AKL possile.. but the return would leave 1750 which was earlier than the QF departure (though QF also had, IIRC a 1500ish 737.

Absolutely the EK product head and shoulkders above QF no doubt, but they also made no money hence pulling it.

Does one require a sleeper for a 3h day flight to AKL? Maybe not but theappeal is there. The A330's on the route have the new suite product, which is akin to the 787 product flying to eUSA routes and better than the skybed in the A380 or 747 so I am not sure how you can say the USA-AU service is awesome, yet the NZ one isn't when it's essentially the same product on many flights though obviously the 737 flights do not have it.

NZ though have 320/321 for most of them too, so it's not like the competition is that different, though the widebody feeder flights to/from USA/South America banks are very nice on 77W and 787 equipment but again they are timed for connections, and not O&D.

 

[kermatu]

I was a frequent occupant of the QF overnight flight to AKL and was delighted to have the A330 of late. It was almost always full (in Y, but less often in J). Surprised it got axed. I am often connecting from another port via MEL to AKL. The timings are poor so of late I’ve done the red eye from PER.. A much poorer service and F lounge access at the wrong time of the day. Not happy.