​New Zealand Australia 2024 Trip

Today, we start our travel to New Zealand and Australia.  We have short flight from Amarillo to Houston then we change to an Air New Zealand plane for our long flight to Auckland.  Fifteen hours on the nicest airline we have ever flown.

We drove off from Logan at 7am.  There were some things we needed to pickup before the flight. Lunch with James before he dropped us off at the Amarillo airport to start the trip.

The flight to Houston was uneventful but a small plane.  When we arrived in Houston, we got a surprise.  The “gangway” was an open walkway with a tent cover.  Luckily for us it was not raining right then even though everything including the walkway was wet.   Why is Houston so cheap not to have actual gangways instead of something the reminds me of a flight in the 70's?  It might be reasonable at a very small airport but even Amarillo with only 7 gates has an enclosed gangway for each.

Off to the International terminal to find our gate and grab a quick meal at a Mexican restaurant.  As always airport food is generally OK but very expensive.

The Air New Zealand plane, a 777-300ER, is HUGE.  We are in row 49 and there were at least 10 more beyond us with 10 people per row.  The plane holds over 360 people and I bet there were about that many people on this flight.   Any other airline would have jammed as many rows of seats as possible. The economy seats were better than any other airline we have been on. The gap was bigger so I had plenty of room for my knees. Yes, that includes Southwest or any other airline.  It is a limited comparison because I have never flown 1st class or Business. The seats even had a support that could be made to come out from below the seat to give some relief to your lower legs.  The gap between seats was much better than even premium on other lines.

The flight attendants were dressed up.  The women in nice dresses and the men were in three piece suits.  They were very helpful and attentive.

We had easy access to bathrooms that were nicer than any other plane we had been on. Being tall, I can have some problems using the bathroom on many airlines. 

After all that, we had the very best food I have EVER had on a plane… PERIOD.  The dinner meal was a choice of Beef Stroganoff or Chicken Parmesan with several side dishes.  We were also offered New Zealand wine for FREE.  The expectation by the airline is that people have wine with dinner and are not charged extra.  

After dinner, we reclined our chairs and extended our foot rests (each chair had  a support for your legs). Put our pillow behind our heads. Blanket over us and tried to sleep.   15 hours later we arrived in New Zealand. NO, we were not in 1st or Business or even Preferred Economy.  We were in regular economy which would have been awful on almost any other airlines.

We had several firsts.  
1. Flying Air New Zealand
2. Crossing the Equator.
3. Crossing the International date line.
4. Loosing a day.  No kidding we left on Monday and arrived on Wednesday. Time travel.  I guess another first for us anyway.

The big downside was the turbulence.  It was bad.  Not the airline or pilots fault but no fun.  It was bad enough that the wings were bouncing and I could hear loud bangs from luggage shifting and bouncing below the cabin.

We got as much sleep as we could before the lights came up letting us know it was time for breakfast.  It was another nice meal.