There is something so satisfying about getting on a plane and genuinely enjoying yourself,
even in Economy. Join me on this trip report as we check out the airport,
the seat and the service, so let’s get into it, welcome to Nadi.
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out the description below and if you’re new here, hi there and welcome, my name is Kevin.
You’ve found yourself on a channel that thinks the world needs a bit more honest travel content.
I make airline trip reports, high end hotel reviews and cruise ship tours as well- all
without invitation. I always film without the company’s knowledge to be sure I get
a true experience and give you nothing more than my honest unbiased opinion.
It is a beautiful day in paradise and right now we are pulling up the
the International terminal here in Nadi. While Suva, located a four hour drive to
the east is the capital and largest city in Fiji, Nadi is the primary international hub,
with the majority of tourism related facilities located on this side of the island.
There are up to six daily flights between Nadi and Auckland, three on Air New Zealand
and three on Fiji Airways. When choosing a flight though, surely Air New Zealand’s 787-9 service,
which happens once a day would have been my choice- and it was.
Though at the last minute there was an aircraft swap, which does officially confirm that third
time isn’t always the charm. This being the third time I’ve flown Air New Zealand, booked on
a 787 and having a last minute equipment swap- an occurrence I’m not referring to as being Kiwi’d.
I suppose this sign confirms that common sense isn’t always common.
There were no lines at all, but checking in at the premium lane with
Star Alliance Gold ensured a quick process. The terminal here is fairly large and modern,
at least in the sense that it has everything that you’d need.
After passing through the maze of Duty Free, my first stop was going to be the lounge though.
While I did have access to the Air New Zealand lounge here in Nadi, I’d read that it’s nothing to
write home about- so I opted for the Fiji Airways lounge instead, accessed with Priority Pass.
Since I mentioned in my Fiji Airways video that it never occured to me that some passengers would
transit through Fiji to get from North America to Australia and New Zealand,
I just wanted to see what kind of transit facility they had- and frankly,
I was mildly shocked. It’s a beautiful lounge.
Plenty of comfortable seating. Working power outlets and a nice range of fresh food on offer.
I’d certainly not have any problem spending a few hours in between flights in here.
Ok, back to today’s main event. Air New Zealand’s routes can be traced back to 1939
when Tasman Empire Airways Limited was formed. Initially owned by the New Zealand Government,
Union Airways of New Zealand, Qantas and BOAC, TEAL focused on trans tasman services-
meaning between Australia and New Zealand. Air New Zealand propper came to be when the
Kiwi Government purchased the Australian held shares of TEAL in 1965. Initially it only served
international routes until it was merged with New Zealand National Airways Corportation in 1978.
Privatized in 1989 it fell back under government control in 2001
following a bit of an embarrassing attempted purchase of Ansett Australia. At the time,
Air New Zealand increased their holding in Ansett from 50% to 100% buying out News Corp.
The fatal error though was the mismatch of scales. Ansett was simply a much larger
operation and Ansett filed for Bankruptcy while the Kiwi government bailed Air New Zealand out.
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Here’s our aircraft inbound from Auckland now.
In 2002 they began focusing their domestic operation on more of a
LCC model and by 2003 they were quickly back to profitability.
Currently, they fly to 20 domestic and 30 international destinations across the
South Pacific, Australia, Asia and North America.
Here we can see the primary departure area of the terminal,
essentially one large open room with some shops and fast food restaurants around the perimeter.
A delay for our flight was announced, which was kind of expected considering
our inbound aircraft landed after we should have been boarding already.
I’ve always been fascinated with Air New Zealand’s livery. Their special All Black 787 livery is by a
mile, my favorite ever aircraft- actually that’s always been a driving reason to try to fly on a
787, to have the chance to see that bird up close. Their
current livery debuted in 2012 when they abandoned their former teal colors, quite literally
and focused on an all black and white livery which even in its basic format, is striking.
The tail logo is a Maori Koru, a stylized representation of a silver fern frond unfolding.
They currently have 107 aircraft in operation with a further 17 on order and over the years,
they’ve been quite the innovator in the in flight experience department.
They were the first airline to debut the Sky Couch.
At one time around a decade ago they had these crazy looking premium economy Space Seats which
look like the coolest premium economy seats on earth, but they didn’t last too long.
And while their current business class is very dated, they’ve recently revealed a totally new
business class product coming soon and the new planes will even feature a handful of fully
flat beds in the rear of the plane which economy passengers can reserve for a few hours at a time.
Originally I was considering to bid for an upgrade on this flight when it was still a 787
so I’d been monitoring the load factor in the days before the flight. 24 seats were booked.
Problem is, the A321neo that we had swapped in doesn’t have business class at all.
I’m not sure how the airline compensated the passengers, but they must have done so
handsomely because I didn’t hear a single peep from any passengers complaining.
Ok, now it's time to board. Absolutely love these outdoor walkways.
As for today’s flight stats, we did take off an hour late but then enjoyed a smooth three
hour cruise more or less due south to Auckland, where we landed just over an hour behind schedule.
Stepping on board, we were almost overwhelmed with hospitality,
in the best of ways. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, but my favorite crews always,
without exception, clearly love their jobs and today was the perfect example of that.
Beyond having their Kiwi charms, they were just super engaging, friendly and easy going.
When I purchased my ticket, I purchased The Works,
which included an extra legroom seat and a few other strange bits, like on board entertainment,
which is otherwise locked, I’ll show you in a bit. Am I the only one that hates these new style of
Airbus bins? They just make the cabin feel so much smaller when boarding, similar to a 737.
My stylish leather seat for this afternoon was 3 Foxtrot,
which had a pair of ear buds waiting for me. These extra legroom seats feature 33” of seat
pitch, which is fantastic, but the appearance of all of this legroom does come at the cost of the
seat depth, which is actually really short. You can see here, even with my small backpack
pushed all the way forward, it’s still barely half way under the seat.
I really do love the finishes of the seat, they are one of the smartest looking seats
on the market today. Only bit I didn’t like was that you recline the seat from this lever,
which I accidently scratched my leg on a few times when getting in and out.
The safety video began to roll and we pushed back.
A short but beautifully lush taxi brought us to the runway, lining up to the South. The spool up
and take off are coming up now. I’d
imagine
this is a pretty easy flight for the flight crew, over open water the entire way.
Now about the entertainment. From the food on board, to the entertainment and more- everything
is a la carte, which means if you didn’t have The Works, your monitor would show this.
It would give you the option to upgrade to MovieTime for $10. Soon after for all of
The Works Package guests, it was unlocked and we had a decent selection of movies on offer.
Lunch was served. Choices were chicken or chicken. I went with the chicken.
I do need to say, it tasted a lot better than it looked and that brownie thing was really
good. My only gripe would be I despise eating off of disposable wood utensils,
but I know that is firmly a me thing. After that, a trip to the rest room
which was kept clean throughout and was sporting some butterfly wallpaper inside.
After service, the friendly crew continued chatting up passengers
and then came around and passed out candies.
I’ll also mention that, while I wasn’t in Business Class, I did think it was a
really nice touch that the captain apologize for the plane swap and acknowledged the lack
of business class on this aircraft. As we began to approach the northern
island of New Zealand we had some nearly impossibly beautiful clouds to lead the way.
We descended over the city and then looped around over
the bay before landing in Auckland from the west. Enjoy the landing.
A quick taxi past the domestic terminal brought us to our gate and that is that.
After deplaining and passing through what is surely the largest arrivals duty free I’ve ever
seen, this journey came to an end. Overall, it was a fantastic little flight. I’ll be honest,
winning me over even after dealing me an aircraft down gague like that is no easy feat,
but the service on board- I just can’t deny that it’s some of the best and most natural
I’ve ever seen. I look forward to flying Air New Zealand again. Perhaps, 4th times the charm.
I do hope you enjoyed this video today. If you did,
please be sure to click that thumbs up button and subscribe so you don’t miss
out on any of my other content which is coming at a rate of three times a week at the moment.
Plenty from New Zealand, Bali and Taiwan in the weeks ahead, but first,
I’ll see you next time at the Intercontinental Fiji. Oh and thanks for watching until the end.