NZ1 LHR-LAX (PE) 18th June 2008
Posted: 19 Jun 2008, 16:53Trip karma smiled down on me. As I walked out onto the main road to get the bus down to the tube station, I'm thinking 'If a cab comes, I'll hail it'. Lo, a cab was coming, and so I saved about 15-20 mins on the journey, and by way of the Jubilee and Bakerloo lines, followed by a lunchtime sandwich from Eat enjoyed at a table on the HEx thanks to VS Au HEx upgrade vouchers, I found the door to door journey from Sarf-East Laaandaan taking not much more than an hour. Probably the best I've done it in a long time.
I'd already worked out that ANZ had stayed put in T3 for the time being, so off to Zone E, where I was rapidly herded by the queue organiser to the Star Gold line and Greenstone coloured carpet to check-in, one person ahead, completed with no fuss. Also found out that the main reason that UA and NZ's move from T3 to T1, the first main Star move to T1, was delayed mainly because the new Star lounge was not finished yet. There is also a lot of taxiway work still in progress around T1, which might have something to do with it as well.
Checked in, but no fast-track for NZ PE pax, headed up to security. One thing was obvious. The supposedly 'helpful' people supplied by OCS to give out ziplock baggies were actually slowing things down, not speeding them up. People kept slowing down and shuffling past them. I just decided to overtake/queue barge the aimlessly shuffling throng, and headed into the security area, where I found myself being asked if I would mind having a sticker placed on my chest 'as part of a survey'. This thing was flourescent green and had some number on it. Once past the boarding card check, I joined one security line, only to notice an adjacent one being shorter, so I ducked through the tensabarriers. At this point, I was relieved of my sticker, having been stuck to my person for about 2 minutes, tops, by a BAA employee. Turns out this is some survey BAA are conducting to work out how long it takes people to get through security. I joked that ducking through the tensabarriers probably biases the survey!
I have to say, even sans-fast-track or private security line, I was check-in to London Lounge in 10 minutes, even with shoe carnival. Probably 20 minutes all-told from getting off HEx to getting in the lounge. This is how it really should be. 'Heathrow Hassle'? Not this time. Some sort of model of how LHR should be.
ANZ normally use the UA Red Carpet Club, but that's getting a bit tired these days (after all, it should have been retired 3 weeks, hell maybe 3 years, ago!), so I headed for the AC/SAS London Lounge, where they didn't bat an eyelid. The free wifi here sucked, very very slow, so I switched to the onboard 3G/HSDPA on my laptop which was much better. While waiting, I noticed an ANZ 744 landing on 27L, but this will have been the flight via HKG, and so wouldn't be my aircraft for the day. Snacks, feta, cruidites and drinkies and some email later, it was time to haul my ass down to gate 31 to join ZK-SUI (aka 'Queenstown'), and head for my PE seat on the main deck (it's split across the back of the upper deck and a bit of the main deck behind #2 doors, like VS LHR 744s used to be). Small bit of jetway congestion, but things moved quickly, and I was settling into my seat and being offered water, juice or bubbly by one of our crew members.
Turns out it was a quiet flight, and there would only be two of us on the main deck in PE, the rest were upstairs in the bubble. This basically meant we had a crew member almost entirely to ourselves. Nice. Bad news was that the PE area on the main deck seemed very hot while we were on the gate, and not 10 feet away was the Y bulkhead with a gamut of babies. One thing to be aware of in the ANZ 744 config is that row 30 in PE on the main deck is level with the front bulkhead middle row of Y, row 35, but sort of enclosed by a 'hooded partition' into which your seat reclines, and during the flight, there's an angled curtain which separates PE from Y.
The IFE was swicthed on while on the ground, and the FSM made a point of indicating that it was okay to watch or listen while still on the ground, and it stayed on until we landed in LAX.
Doors were shut just after 4pm, and we pushed at 1615 on the button, exactly on time. The four GE CF6s were fired up and we started our taxi out to 27R, during which time, we were serenaded by the babies on the Row 35 bulkhead, however, as soon as the takeoff roll started about 1645 local, the crying stopped, and the infants were no problem at all for the rest of the flight. Why is it that it's usually like that? Kids cry and cry during taxi, but usually just stop once the plane is flying? Is it just to taunt us and make us dread a noisy flight, so that we're overjoyed later when they only make occasional gurgling noises?
The inflight service was started very quickly for us in PE, drinks offered, and given that I had already decided I'd prefer the chicken for main course, I opted for the Sauvignon Blanc, which turned out to be from the Terrace Heights winery in Marlborough, NZ's primary Sauv Blanc region and very enjoyable. Drinks were served with ANZ's cassava crackers, which are a bit of a signature snack item for them. I dug into the IFE, found a string of 'Flight of the Conchords' episodes, and started laughing out loud. Nice.
Tray setup was brought around without further ado, containing appetiser, bread plate, water, cutlery, and the dessert item.
The dinner service on this flight was:
Salad of shitake mushrooms, smoked duck breast, orange and pecan nuts, with NZ manuka honey and mustard dressing (the dressing served on the side)
Main course choices were:
Grilled beef fillet on crushed parsnip and lemon braised Swiss chard with roast baby beetroot and green olive tarragon tapenade.
Roast halibut on parmesan mash, green beans with tomato and herb salsa, and crispy buckwheat.
Roasted corn fed chicken breast stuffed witb truffle oil butter and porcini, on trofie pasta, with red peppers and baby artichokes.
Lemon creme caramel with passionfruit syrup and florentine biscuit
Somerset brie and Butler's Secret cheddar with fruit and crackers
Our crew member brought dinner at a pace which suited us, the service and the food itself were both excellent. Everything was served by hand, nothing from a service cart. The only thing I might have wished for was a crispier skin on the chicken, seeing as it was served skin-on, but I guess that's a lot to ask for on a plane. The flavours were great, the quantity just right, and I really enjoyed the meal.
Dessert wine, Forrest Estate 2006 Botyrised Riesling, was offered to me during the dessert, and I came back from a visit to the bathroom to find port and cheese waiting for me at my seat. Now we're flying...
At some point, the FSM dropped by, addressing me by name, handing out US paperwork, and spent a few minutes chatting, and touched on the impending swap of NZ1/2 from 744 to 777 metal in October. My personal opinion from last time NZ tried this, was it was a complete disaster, with bumped pax all over the place - being the last LAX flight of the day out of LHR, it caused a lot of overnighting in expensive Heathrow hotels, which must have cost NZ dearly. Maybe NZ can get away with the 777 midweek, but would really need the 744 on weekends, and probably throughout over the Christmas holiday period. I wonder if the attempt to run the 777 to LHR will be as short lived as last time? Sure, it's definitely more economical on fuel and crew, but isn't an airline's job to get people places, rather than put them up in hotels? The 777 has about 50% the number of PE seats (18 to the 744's 39), and about 60% the number of J seats (26 on the 777, compared to 46 on the 744).
The NZ IFE selection was pretty good, with some current movie releases, and a good selection of 'classics', and yes, the LoTR trilogy is still there. As well as about six episodes of Flight of the Conchords, we had about the same of Gavin and Stacy, a Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares or two, and a lot of NZ content seemed to make up much of the TV selection. However the skymap/airshow was out of action on this aircraft and all we got was a blue screen.
One of the documentary items on the IFE was Louis Theroux's documentary on 'America's Most Hated Family' - one of the ironic items was one of the 'clan' saying they were against symbols of the 'rotten USA' while wearing a Nike tee-shirt. Oh, the irony?
Anyway, we were well on our way now, having left the UK via the Western Isles, passed off the Southern tip of Greenland, and across Hudson Bay (all from looking out the plane window!), all the while I've been working on NZ's enjoyable wines, including a decent, very warm (maybe a touch too peppery), rich Pinot Noir (Fiddler's Green, Waipara, 2006), later moving on to the Spy Valley 2006 Marlborough Riesling, but I thought 'that will do'... and I started to ease off and drink more water
.One thing which seems weird is that the main deck PE seats seem to be in the same PA zone and crew to pax text messaging via the IFE as the Y cabin. Our IFE would be interrupted by announcements to the Y cabin about meal services. I'm guessing this is a misconfiguration, and could even be specific to this aircraft - ZK-SUI was the first 744 to be refitted, and at this point, there was no PE on the main deck - it was expanded to the main deck as an afterthought.
The flight seemed to rocket by fairly quickly, probably thanks to the NZ 'wine scooter' distorting my perception of time, and very soon afternoon tea was served - a fruit bowl, a selection of finger sandwiches, all with recognisable fillings, no mystery goo, with second helpings, and a (very warm) scone with clotted cream and jam. This was accompanied by fresh brewed coffee, made in a cafetiere.
We hung a left over Las Vegas and descended over the LA urban sprawl. Warehouses and factories as far as the eye can see at times, ending with a landing just after 1920 local time on 25L (on the south side of the airport), followed by a smart taxi behind the Bradley International terminal (another reason not to fly BA when coming here) to reach T2, where we got the usual 'tow on' to the usual ANZ stand. Immigration wasn't too hideous, at times even raised a smile (like when the Customs guy asked 'Do you have $10,000 in your case?', I was like 'Right, I wish...'), and I was kerbside within about 45 minutes.
Another good experience on ANZ, great service, nice crew, good food and drink, very comfortable seating. The whole flight seemed to go quite quickly and I felt quite fresh when I got off the plane, except maybe the slight headache from all the New Zealand wine I'd been enjoying! The only thing I would say compared to my last flight was that this aircraft wasn't as clean. Lots of fingermarks on windows, coffee splashes on seatbacks, odd bits of trash floating around in the seat pocket, etc. Maybe they are using the same contractor to do 'cleaning' at LHR as VS these days? [}:)]
Mike