Introduction
Seattle to Honolulu
Honolulu to Auckland
Auckland to Christchurch
Wellington to Rotorua
Auckland to San Francisco
San Francisco to Seattle
I managed to extricate myself from the Aircraft and although we landed early, by the time I had gotten off the aircraft it was around about the time that I normally would have been off, had we been on time and I was sitting up the front still. That is nothing to complain about. I was met at the end of the boarding area by a couple of Hawaiian Airlines staff members who were going to escort me over to the main terminal to where my aircraft to New Zealand was waiting. They had set up for me to access the aircraft to take some empty cabin shots before it was bonded by customs and no one but the crew could come on. Fine with me!
As we made our way up out of the mess of people ahead towards the shuttle area, I realised that I was heading for the famed “Wiki Wiki Shuttle”. A shuttle bus that ran along the roof top of some of the terminals and is also apparently part of where Wikipedia was named after (though because I read that on Wikipedia, take it with a grain of salt). It was great to chat to the Hawaiian staff ever so briefly but any chatting to a fellow avgeek is always great.
They took me over to my connecting gate and the Airbus A330 that was to take me to Auckland sat waiting for me. We had to wait a little bit for the catering staff to finish and empty out of the aircraft, then it was all me! I snapped a few photos and within about 5 minutes we were good to go. Into a totally empty aircraft that was eerily quiet but made for some great photo opportunities.
After snapping away to my hearts content and then holding back from playing in the cockpit (I wasn’t there to play, I was there to work) they told the best vantage points for some exterior shots and I went for a nice walk in the open breezeways of Honolulu airport. Got to love the fact that the terminal is practically open air for the entire thing. Seriously that is awesome! Being able to hear the engine noise, smell the burning jet fuel and most importantly enjoy the feeling of real sunshine and warmth is like a dream come true. Avgeek nirvana.
With all the photos done that I needed to get done, I headed back towards the gate area, to catch up with my coworkers and also to get some power for my laptop as it was not going to make the whole flight and I did want to at least get some work done (though not much was going to happen on what little battery power I had left). Catching up with my coworkers and talking about general stuff was good and soon enough the holding bay for the gate was filling up.
Hawaiian Airlines – HA445
Honolulu to Auckland
1345-2145
Airbus A330-200 (N381HA)
Economy Class – Seat 42J
Boarding: 1302 (Gate 29)
Push Back: 1340
Take Off Roll: 1355 (Runway 8R)
Top of Descent: 2100
Touch Down: 2137 (Runway 23L)
Shut Down: 2141 (Gate 8)
Boarding was announced and that it would be conducted in groups and that passports would be checked prior to boarding the aircraft. As they slowly called through the different groups, with Wheelchair passengers, then first class, then children with infants under 2, then finally priority boarding. With that, since I was down the back of the bus (the things I do for a window seat) I headed down the jetbridge towards my waiting Airbus.
It was weird to be back onboard again and actually seeing crew moving about. Boarding through Door 2L was expected and I was advised to cross to the far side of the aircraft and to the back of the “Bus” you go! All the way to the back (not as bad as last time though). I was told when I got my seat swapped that there was no guarantee the seat next to me would remain empty, so I didn’t unpack my crap to much to begin with and kind of held back from just exploding all my stuff everywhere. I did the usual pre flight things while I waited. I took photos, filled in the log book, took more photos, tweeted, read about the Delta and Alaska partnership falling apart at the seems (the best part was that my email was full of emails from the other blog staff about how we had managed to break the news to the web first… way to go!) and generally just didn’t realize what was going on. While on the ground they had distributed small amenity kits (essentially headphones, earplugs and an eye mask) along with also a menu! Yes a menu in Economy, but it also doubled as a postcard so you could write a letter to someone and post them the menu.. hrm tempting! I will try not to be a cheap ass and use the postcard to send to someone.
Next thing I know the doors are shut, boarding complete is announced and we are pushing back… errr where did my time go! I hadn’t even done up my seatbelt before we were halfway through the safety video and I had managed to scramble to stow my stuff properly. Next thing I know my camera battery dies and I am stuffed without any photo ability (apart from the occasional photo from my phone which obviously was a very very naughty thing to do, but if it was important I was going to take the shot). We taxiied out to the active departure runway which was the famous (or infamous depends how you look at it) Reef Runway.
We taxiied out past Hickam and were followed to the active by a Navy P3 off on a flight somewhere. If I had of been on the Port (Left) side and had a working camea, I would of had a perfect series of photos of us holding on the active while a Navy P3 sat directly out my window waiting in line. Dammit! Didn’t matter, for the second time in my life I was departing the reef runway from Honolulu, both times in an A330 (different airlines and destinations though) and going to enjoy the climb out. We powered up as the pilot pushed the controls forward up in the cockpit and there must of been some crosswind on take off as we got nailed around quite a bit on the roll. But we soon were airborne and watching the winglet bounce is always fun.
We climbed up and away from Honolulu and slowly climbed to cruise altitude. We were barely in the air, still with seatbelt signs on and people were already moving about. Is it just me or does no one pay any attention to these signals anymore… seriously! I try not to move about at all, but below 10,000ft is definately a no no. We were far off cruise altitude and I do feel that sometimes american pilots keep the seat belt sign on far to long (through to a 40 minute climb to cruise is a bit much when it is clear as a tack out) but people in general these days seem far to complacent. Enough crapping on about people, back to the flight.
Climb out was long (as expected as I am sure this plane is heavily laden with cargo) and we were informed of a flight time of 8 hours 47 minutes which should have us arriving around 7pm… Say what now. A flight time that is roughly on time but getting us in 2 hours early… me thinks someone didn’t set their watch correctly this morning. I moved my watch to Auckland local (1 hour less but 1 day in the future) and settled in to fill out the immigration forms that were being handed out.
Once we hit cruise at 38,000ft the seat belt sign came off, I hopped up to stretch and get down my electronics so that I could settle in for the flight ahead. Did I mention the seat beside me stayed empty. Though any remaining empty seat out there in the cabin filled up quicker than hell. Avod on the A330s is still a paid affair but the offerings though good (and work was paying so it wasn’t going to cost me anything) apparently had the ability to connect USB devices. I knew it would charge which was great, but I was hoping to be able to stream from my tablet to the screen so that way I could watch it on the slightly larger screen. Not to be, must only be iphone/ipod compatible as neither of my android devices worked. I settled in to do some work while I waited for service to commence.
Beverage service came through with offer of some snack mix and it was tiny cup time. Can’t I get a full can sometime today? Being a daylight flight I was intending on treating the first meal as lunch, working/chilling out for the afternoon and then our last service would be “Dinner” before hitting the sack as soon as we touched down in Auckland. Since I would be up about 4am for a quick shower and change before heading for another flight to Christchurch I had my day planned essentially. I mulled the plans over in my head while I had some snack mix and typed away.
When that was all cleaned up, shortly afterwards out came the first meal service. Ahhh economy. It’s the same on any airline. Take off, Feed the pax, make them sleepy, shut the blinds, go to bed now people. Pfft!!! That was not going to happen to me today. It may have been an effort to stay awake as long as possible, but that is what I was going to do. I settled back to my lunch which was promptly delivered (no choice) and started to watch the movies that I had brought.
Although I couldn’t stream the movies through the seatback, I could keep the tablet charged fully with the usb plug at the seat, so while my tablet stayed nicely powered, I sat back to enjoy my tv shows and movies in relative comfort (2 seats to myself) and set up a kind of tablet stand out of the stuff I had around me. Unfortunately their would be no “GhettoIFE” on this flight as the sick bags don’t really accomodate a 7” Tablet.
Lunch wasn’t all that bad and once it was cleared away and I managed to get myself some more coffee, I pretty much spent the next several hours just watching TV shows and movies and having a conversation with a co worker in a forward row (went for a walk). The snack bar was set up forward this time (was set up in the rear cabin of the 767 and I checked it out and purchased a little bit of a snackage for my afternoon movie) and continued on doing nothing really.
The flight cruised by, as we raced the sunset away from the USA we kept battling to see if we could out pace it, but it was not to be. The sun slowly set as we passed around Fiji with about 3 hours or so left in our flight. The sunset wasn’t the best I have seen but it was still pretty damn good. The sun dropping behind the clouds made for a good backdrop against the winglet and I got a few photos. I kept thinking to myself “This is why I love to fly”, getting shots like that, just make it exciting to me.
As the sun set we slowly started to dwindle down our time to New Zealand. Around 2 hours out I expected the final service to begin, it was advertised as “High Tea, Hawaiian Style” so whatever that was, who knows! But nothing came. I packed up my stuff around the 90 minute mark… still nothing, but at 1h 15 mins from Auckland. The crew started what felt like a rushed service. The high tea was a little snack box with a small sandwhich, 2 small cookies and a chocolate macadamia nut. Not to bad if you ask me. Add in the fact that I just had to have the one thing that every single person who flies Hawaiian should have (POG) and it wasn’t a bad snack service.
As they rushed around the cabin clearing things away as we began descent into Auckland roughly 30 minutes out. It felt very very rushed for all the crew to be finishing things up as we were literally already into a slow descent. Couldn’t see anything out the window as it was all cloud and darkness, so not much to really worry about and I just finished the flight off reading the inflight magazine as the moving map had been switched off at the 30 minute mark.
Final preparations for landing were made mere moments out as we came onto finals from the opposite side that I have always landed at in Auckland. After a nice hard thump on landing we slowly taxiied to the international terminal. We were briefed to stay in our seats, do not move and do not touch anything while they sprayed the aircraft for quaratine reasons. That process took FOREVER! Almost 15 minutes while we couldnt move or do anything. Eh… kill me now. I was already fading fast and this was not helping.
When we finally got the ok to move, I tried to get myself out of the aircraft as quickly as possible but I wasn’t holding my breath for a fast exit since I was at the back. By the time I was off, I didn’t expect to see my coworkers anywhere and I didn’t even see them at what felt like the worlds largest duty free store (but it’s not I am sure that’s in Dubai or somewhere) buying wine. From that point onwards my plan of action was to get through immigration, get my bag, get to the Telecom store, buy a sim and get to bed!
Thankfully immigration wasn’t to bad (had to ask for a stamp which I got chastised for.. pfft) and headed out through customs with my bag. Telecom was pretty much right at the exit and within 10 minutes of entering the store I was fully switched on with a new sim, new number and a half gig of data (plus access to a gig a day free wifi at Telecom hot spots). Seemed good enough to me.
Our hotel for the evening was the Novotel Auckland Airport and thankfully there is no messing around with shuttles or anything like that. It is right at the terminal exit, just past the shuttles, on the other side of the pathway. Could not miss it! Got to love that kind of location. Check in was a breeze, waved goodbye to my coworkers who were discussing wake up call times and I headed up to my room for the evening to charge up my stuff and conk out.
