Is it even worth paying for Business Premier on Air New Zealand? [Melbourne - Auckland]

I was booking on Air New Zealand's Premier Business which most of the in flight experience is reflective of that, but on the ground, yikes! Let's start from the beginning shall we.

I arrived just under 4 hours prior to departure due to the pre-departure testing requirement for New Zealand, so I went to get tested as the rapid antigen test only takes about 30 minutes to process. The queue was relatively short and as I've pre-booked it online they allow us to jump ahead. After I've completed the test, I went to the border office to process the GST refund as I was carrying some fairly large items that I cannot hand carry with me. The first border agent was not very friendly and told me I've to carry it with me or else I cannot claim it, while she said she will sign off on the bigger items but they are all one piece but separated so I wasn't sure how she was going to make that work, and she said I will need to print out the receipt for her to process it, and they conveniently have a printing facility right next door that charges $3 to print up to 5 pages, which is a rip off but I suppose they are counting on it as people usually don't have choices at the airport. After getting my paper receipt, another officer was at the counter and processed my claim without any issues, telling me I can have everything in my check luggage so I don't have to carry it with me, but since they are inconsistent I just brought the smaller items with me as I am allowed to carry 2 large carry on plus a small item, so it wasn't a big issue, although I did have a good workout carrying that all over the airport. Long story short, when I went to process the claim after immigration (where they process the refund and inspect the goods if it's a smaller size), they didn't check any of my items and gave me the refund, I guess the stamp worked their magic.

CHECK IN

I was at the check in area about 15 minutes before it opens, the ground staff rolled up right on time but they haven't set up the area so people were everywhere and there was no indication of where the queue is for economy or premium, once they set it up people started queuing up but it was a mess as the queue for premium was initially on one side but then more people joined on the other side so the queue ended up switching to the other side and I was the bad guy jumping queue, at least that's what it felt like. Economy passengers was able to enjoy the 2 dozens or so self check in machines, and for whatever reason, premium queue was the slowest out of all, many of the premium queuing passengers went over to the self check in machine and then check in via the economy lane as it was a lot quicker as there was barely any queuing at all, by the time I was in front of the queue, most of the economy passengers who were with me waiting for the check in to open may be already sitting at the boarding gate, which is ridiculous. The entire check in process from queueing to getting my boarding pass took about an hour, which I think is unacceptable for a premium experience, the only reason I stuck to the premium queue was the issuing of priority bag tags for my checked luggage, while people using the economy lane will not have that privilege. One way they could eliminate that issue is to reserve at least 1 row of the self check in machines for premium passengers rather than having to manually process each passenger at the counter, and then open up one of the counters for premium bag drop which they can also double it as a premium check in counter when they are free.

LOUNGE

Premium passengers will have access to the Air New Zealand lounge, including Star Alliance Gold members. The lounge was half full when I went in, eventually getting fairly busy towards the boarding time as there may be other flights departing around that time as well. The lounge was refreshed since my last visit back at least 5 years ago, most of the seating has charging points but they get snatched up very quickly even though most of the people don't use those charging ports, the seats may be the attraction I believe. There was the usual selection of alcoholic beverages, soft drinks and juices, even barista made coffee which you can order via the Air NZ app or through the counter. The food options are fairly limited, which is especially true if you are a vegetarian/vegan. Sandwiches and wraps made most of the appearances on the counter, the hot food selection was kransky (sausages), scrambled eggs and soup.

Half way through my 1 hour lounge time, the staff was cooking up a cocktail and walked up to the passengers offering it, they never came up to me though, was I invisible or do I look like an underage child? I wouldn't have been able to drink it since it will most likely contain alcohol but I would have liked the option to have it, and be valued as a premium passenger.

Edging closer to the boarding time, I check the app which was slightly glitchy and I was having a hard time getting new information, but eventually it was working and showing that our flight got pushed back 10 minutes, and then 20 minutes, then 30 minutes. We then got boarding call to head over to the gate, the queue was as pretty much a repeat of the scene at check in, just utter chaos with a huge crowd standing by the boarding queue and there was no indication of who is queuing where, and I got arrogantly told to move over by a lady with children because she is priority, well I have a business class ticket so I am also priority, after a bit of looking I figured out where the priority queue was and it felt like almost 1/3 of the people on board are premium passengers which is pretty ridiculous, and half way through my queuing at the premium lane, economy passengers were boarding as well since they were already queuing up and being processed together while premium passengers were still not fully processed. By the time I got on to the plane, the majority of the business class passengers have already settled in and getting their pre-departure service, which means the premium queue chaos was made up of a majority of the economy passengers, and some of the premium economy passengers although they are entitled to use that lane and there are only about 30 or so seats there which will not cause such chaos.

If the ground staff could efficiently manage the queue and allow premium passengers to be processed by all the agents before processing the economy passengers, it would definitely lessen the queuing time and actually made my premium ticket worth the extra cash, but the fact that up to this point a lot of economy passengers were getting ahead of me while paying 1/2 of the ticket price is fairly ridiculous, there was not a drop of premium feeling from check in to boarding, when that's the time premium passengers expect to be whizzed through the crowd and getting on their way.

FLIGHT

Once I boarded and settled on my seat, the crew came to offer each passenger a pre-departure beverage, there were options of Orange Juice, Champagne or water. While the crew was friendly, I didn't feel a sense of personalisation or approachability, that many 5 star airlines strive for, little things like having small chats with the passengers and addressing them by name, which they eventually did address us by name only when they were taking the meal order while our aircraft was being delayed a further 30 minutes as they were loading up more cargo to carry to NZ or beyond. Apart from that one time, there was no addressing by name anymore, and each person is just another passenger. Don't get me wrong, they were friendly, and they are well known for their friendliness in the skies, but I could get the exact same friendliness towards the back end up of the aircraft, so there was not much of a difference when it comes to how they differentiate premium and economy passenger experience.

Let's talk about the seat, Air New Zealand still has one of the most outdated and unappealing business class products that are still in operation, arranged in a 1-1-1 herringbone configuration, the middle and right section of the cabin is the most undesirable location due to passengers basically facing each other, the left section has the most privacy as the middle section faces away from you, but due to the low walls, you are not getting any privacy, a small turn of your head and you'll be seeing all the expressions your neighbours are making, including those on the other 2 sections, and vice versa the other sections can look at you directly from their seats, so privacy wise you are not going to get any, but on a sleeping position you should feel more private with the cocoon shell wrapping the upper half of your body. Regardless, it is not a very competitive Business Class product in the industry, in combination with the high ticket price that they usually charge, there would be other options that would be much more appealing to travellers looking for comfort and privacy.

The IFE system is located on the side of your seat, which has to be stored for takeoff and landing, so to enjoy entertainment gate to gate, you will have to be sitting slightly sideway and in a very awkward position, not a very intuitive design. During meal service, the IFE screen is also in the way of the dining table, you'll not able to place meals on the far end of the table until you pull it towards you to have a bit of a distance between the IFE and the table, which I didn't think of while the flight attendants set it up so it was a bit tight to squeeze everything in there. This also poses an issue if you need to push the table away from you during meal service to head to the toilet. Under the IFE system is a headphone jack and a USB port for charging.

There is an average size storage bin located next to the seat directly underneath where the IFE is stored. A universal charging port is located inside, along with the usual safety cards and sick bag. Located next to the IFE screen is a mini tray that you can use for placing your drinks but you do require a bit of a flexible movement to twist your body back to reach it, while we're on the topic of twisting, since the "window" seat is actually non window facing, it requires a bit of neck straining to look out the window which is not ideal and annoying for avgeek and people who are just wanting to look out instead of starring at other people.

An ottoman is located towards the end of the seat, where it also acts as an additional seat for your travel companion to dine with you if desired. The ottoman has a small but decent size storage underneath but I found a lollie which means the cabin wasn't properly cleaned during turn around. While in a reclining position the legroom is just acceptable on the ottoman, I am not sure whether that will be the case when it is transformed into a bed mode. As the seat design is such that you are required to use the separate button located right at the very front of the seat to get the back of the seat to come down turning it into a flat bed experience, which is a hassle and also not done often during a medium haul route, is a waste of an opportunity for the passengers to actually get comfortable even for a short period.

Shortly after departure, passengers were given peanuts and the choice of drink ordered prior to departure while the crew prepare for the meal service. After about 15 minutes or so, the entrée was served, and since I didn't know what to expect for my meal given I have ordered a vegetarian meal and it is not listed on the menu, I thought I was only getting 1 meal so I forced myself to finish everything on that table, I have no idea what it was and it didn't look too appetizing either, but it was a cold salad dish which you can reference from the image. After the entrée, comes the main which is a hot meal thank God, as I have only flown premium economy on the trans-Tasman route prior to this experience, I was served a cold dish and there was nothing else so that gave me a bit of a PTSD flashback. The main dish has this somewhat mesh potato looking item but it wasn't and I didn't like the texture or taste of it, however the tomato soaked veggies and some extra greens were nice. After the mains, I was asked what I want for dessert, which I was slightly confused as they haven't taken any order from me since I told them I had the vegetarian meal and they didn't say anything else which I assumed they have the dessert prepared for me as well, and I was told to look at the menu. I think they should have been better prepared as I didn't have time to properly look through the list and decide what I want, but I went for the Caramel panna cotta with sesame crumble, macerated strawberries. I was actually afraid that the caramel will be too sweet but it was actually just nice, although I would prefer a cheese cake or some sort of cake for dessert, the strawberry tasted like it had gone bad but I assumed it was that fancy thing they did to it to cause the texture and taste.

After the table was cleared, there were only about 45 minutes left to the flight, so it was a bit of toilet time and filling out the arrival form before we need to store everything for landing. We touched down just short of 1830 hours, 50 minutes behind the scheduled arrival time.

HARD BRAKING

There were two instances where the flight crew did a fairly firm braking. The first occurred during our taxi to the runway for takeoff in Melbourne, the plane swerve left and right on top of that, I was wondering if the crew may have gotten confused with their direction and missed their intended turn. The captain came on the PA a minute later informing that the ATC gave a last second taxi change instruction so they had to make a firm manoeuvre, which is fair enough if that is true. The second is after touching down in Auckland where the crew either disengage the autobrake or just hitting the brake a little too hard on the exit. This hasn't actually happened for the dozens of flights I have taken with Air NZ, as it is well known that Air NZ has very strict entry requirement for recruiting pilots, so this was very unexpected. Whether it is down to the lack of time flying due to the pandemic or accidental mistake, it is definitely something new I've experienced on this airline.

CONCLUSION

The ground experience in Melbourne airport has been an absolute disaster, it felt like the economy passengers are in better position than premium passengers, of course except the lounge access although the food selection was subpar in comparison to many other lounges that I have been in.

While they are in the process of upgrading their Business Class hard product and trialing of new meal service on selected routes, I think they can do better in the meantime with their meal service by catering a wider selection of meals especially for special meal passengers where a selection of cuisine should be offered given that NZ is fairly multicultural now and their meal should also reflect as such, but of course keeping their current selections for people who are looking to experience the more authentic Kiwi cuisine experience.

The crew while preserving their title of friendliness, felt a little underwhelming when it comes to the Business Class experience. There was no personalisation or service attitude that screams Premium, in comparison to some of my other premium experience where they go the extra mile, even in Premium Economy let along Business Class, so it was rather disappointing to see that you are only going to be getting the additional space and comfort of the seat and better meal service for around 4 times extra of an economy ticket, for such short flight a Premium Economy ticket would be more than suffice given the experience wouldn't differ too much especially a flat bed experience on Business Class is not usually possible unless you are travelling long haul, I do hope that they will be choosing a better Business Class seat to install for their refurbishment as a flat bed and privacy is the norm for many Business Class product out there flying, and to remain competitive.