Hurricanes v Blues
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A couple of mates and I Decided while drunk at New Years to surprise the boys with a trip to Wellington to watch blues v canes, and we hoped the blues would have had a better season but ah well the lads still loved the surprise when we broke it to them at 11am Saturday after they’d finished their game. That was about the highlight.....
2pm flight got delayed 230 then 3pm then cancelled as the part they had used to repair the plane was the wrong part. AirNZ told us we were rebooked to the 7pm flight but hell that wasnt gonna work. The combo of dad rage and sad 7 and 8 year old boys seemed to get the desired impact and we were rebooked to the 5pm flight so looked like we still had a chance. 11 of us in to koru and a good session was had. Extended session too as 5pm got rescheduled to 545 then 620 then 630 we boarded and finally took off at 7farken25!!! Landed before half time and shuttled to the ground and into the lounge for the last 30mins so at least the kids got to visit the caketin and witness the canes tear us a new one.
They also got to experience classic wet and windy Wellington weather on Sunday, a (lost?) whale in Wellington harbour and te papa. Oh and and another extended koru session thanks for more delays coming home Sunday night.
Couldn’t really tell you much about the rugby. Best I read the posts above to find out what happened in the 50mins we missed.
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@jk I've had awful experiences with Air NZ the last couple of years. Really disappointing. The most recent being flight out of Wellington to Sydney being delayed 2hours due to a faulty fuel gauge. Which they knew about when we boarded and took 90 minutes to decide to switch us to the empty plane right next door. Missed my connection to Bathurst and had to drive. Eggs.
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@snowy said in Hurricanes v Blues:
@bones There will have been a shit load more to that. Annoying for you but you got there alive didn't you. There is reason air travel is safe.
Yep, it is as annoying as fuck but aircraft repairs are way more complicated than chucking on a replacement part and crossing your fingers.
Any fault has to be logged with full tracing of the faulty part in case it is potentially from a faulty batch. Any replacement must also have that same traceability and be checked for potential compatibility issues with other parts on that plane. The level of checking and caution is very high.
Admittedly, I believe that like many airlines AirNZ have pulled back on their engineering spend to find a better cost balance although compared to some other large airlines they are still very good.
Talk to an airline engineer about what airlines they won't fly on and you will get some surprises. -
I once got delayed on a Cathay flight to HK from Auckland, for 7 hours. They boarded us, then an engineering fault which took 90 mins to fix went into the pilots hours. Thus needed another pilot on board.
Now, I'm ok with all of that - due to the safety aspect etc.
What I wasn't ok with, was the additional 7 hours of just sitting on the tarmac doing nothing. Would it have been THAT much ball ache to let us off the plane, so we could access the terminal facilities?
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@majorrage said in Hurricanes v Blues:
I once got delayed on a Cathay flight to HK from Auckland, for 7 hours. They boarded us, then an engineering fault which took 90 mins to fix went into the pilots hours. Thus needed another pilot on board.
Now, I'm ok with all of that - due to the safety aspect etc.
What I wasn't ok with, was the additional 7 hours of just sitting on the tarmac doing nothing. Would it have been THAT much ball ache to let us off the plane, so we could access the terminal facilities?
There must be some reason why they won't let you out of the plane once the doors close and you've pulled away from the gate. I got stuck in a United plane in LA for 5 hours until they let us back out. They were too tight arse to feed or water us. Cheap bastards
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@bones said in Hurricanes v Blues:
@snowy said in Hurricanes v Blues:
@bones There will have been a shit load more to that. Annoying for you but you got there alive didn't you. There is reason air travel is safe.
Well shit I'll take my one free half cup of water and stfu.
Hell no! Never drink the water from a planes tanks.
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AirNz seems to open new bottles each time so assuming that stuff is all old.
Annoying thing for people on Saturday was the need to leave plane and go back thru security to pick up any checked in bags etc. and then go try rebook. One couple we spoke to in koru had a 9am flight to wgtn which couldn’t land due to weather then they were on our 2pm flight which broke and then out delayed 5pm, 545pm, 630 I mean 725pm flight
Third world problems though really when there is unlimited food and drink to consume. We certainly made the most of it. One of the kids even asked if he could have his next birthday party in the koru lounge
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My last bad experience with Air NZ was in 1997 where we were stuck on a plane for 6 hours in LA. Then they bussed us to a hotel nearby and stuck my Mum, sister and I in one room with a queen bed. When I went down to get my own room I discovered Air NZ staff were handing out food and drink, that we wouldn't have known about if we'd been put in a bigger room.
To be honest it wasn't all bad, the breakfast and lunch at the hotel were awesome and they gave us travel vouchers which wound up being enough for a trip to Oz.
I haven't had any issues with Air NZ since then - Qantas are my mortal airline enemies these days after my bag incident in Townsville (which I've mentioned many times before).
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Quite apt talking miserable travel stories in here, rather like the Blues season.
My "worst" travel story was traveling back to Auckland from Darwin in a C130 and we "broke" down and diverted to Brisbane where the captains Girlfriend happened to live.
We all spent the night at a jack the ripper's and flew out on a remarkably sound plane the next morning, albeit with a stinking hangover. Luckily we could set up hammocks to sleep in.
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@crucial said in Hurricanes v Blues:
@snowy said in Hurricanes v Blues:
@bones There will have been a shit load more to that. Annoying for you but you got there alive didn't you. There is reason air travel is safe.
Yep, it is as annoying as fuck but aircraft repairs are way more complicated than chucking on a replacement part and crossing your fingers.
Any fault has to be logged with full tracing of the faulty part in case it is potentially from a faulty batch. Any replacement must also have that same traceability and be checked for potential compatibility issues with other parts on that plane. The level of checking and caution is very high.
Admittedly, I believe that like many airlines AirNZ have pulled back on their engineering spend to find a better cost balance although compared to some other large airlines they are still very good.
Talk to an airline engineer about what airlines they won't fly on and you will get some surprises.Can't remember who told me this, about 20 years ago, but some engineering fellow said to stick to airlines with 'British' trained engineers. Back then I recall that as including BA, Virgin, ANZ, Qantas, Cathay, Singapore and SAA.
Avoid American if possible. Three grades of fault, 1,2 & 3. Grade 1 immediate fix, 2 something like that week. Grade 3 was not vital but needed to be done at some point. Trouble was to save on costs American Airlines only did 3s every six months, as against promptly by 'Brits'. Cumulative impact of many 3s can become as risky as a 2, and in exceptional circumstances a 1.
May be out of date by now.
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@pakman said in Hurricanes v Blues:
@crucial said in Hurricanes v Blues:
@snowy said in Hurricanes v Blues:
@bones There will have been a shit load more to that. Annoying for you but you got there alive didn't you. There is reason air travel is safe.
Yep, it is as annoying as fuck but aircraft repairs are way more complicated than chucking on a replacement part and crossing your fingers.
Any fault has to be logged with full tracing of the faulty part in case it is potentially from a faulty batch. Any replacement must also have that same traceability and be checked for potential compatibility issues with other parts on that plane. The level of checking and caution is very high.
Admittedly, I believe that like many airlines AirNZ have pulled back on their engineering spend to find a better cost balance although compared to some other large airlines they are still very good.
Talk to an airline engineer about what airlines they won't fly on and you will get some surprises.Can't remember who told me this, about 20 years ago, but some engineering fellow said to stick to airlines with 'British' trained engineers. Back then I recall that as including BA, Virgin, ANZ, Qantas, Cathay, Singapore and SAA.
Avoid American if possible. Three grades of fault, 1,2 & 3. Grade 1 immediate fix, 2 something like that week. Grade 3 was not vital but needed to be done at some point. Trouble was to save on costs American Airlines only did 3s every six months, as against promptly by 'Brits'. Cumulative impact of many 3s can become as risky as a 2, and in exceptional circumstances a 1.
May be out of date by now.
I occasionally have this discussion with an ex AirNZ engineer and this is what I picked up
BA are awful now, massive interference in engineering by the accountants. Cathy and Singapore have always been very good and maintained high standards
The UK/US thing is a bit true but doesn't always hold water. One of the key things is the investment in parts on hand. As I described earlier every nut and bolt on a commercial aircraft is computer logged with identifiers and makes it possible to trace faults, compatibility and batch issues If you need to order a part (as opposed to having it in store) this safety aspect can mean that it takes a little longer.
In passenger impact this can mean that an expected small repair becomes a bigger issue when the part you expect to use is not usable on that particular aircraft. So you get those situations where they sit you on the tarmac saying short delay, which then becomes a long delay.
