MrsFychan

dropping its LA leg from US to UK

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/...ectid=12278865

BEVS

Not too surprised TBH.
It's a rotten route & airport IMO .

hrowen

It saying that Air NZ will lose its heathrow presence was that its only flight?!

Jerseygirl

Most US airports are TBH Saying that Manchester is pretty grim these days.

Now flying Newark NJ to Aukland direct now, which is better for us if we come back to NZ.

BEVS

Manchester UK? I've never flown into there . Himself has flown into BHam via Paris or similar when he used to make trips back to see his Mother.

TBH LAX and then LHR would not be a good experience these years.

Jerseygirl

Yes UK it used to be quite a nice airport, but it’s expanded and IMO is quite trashy inside.

Dorothy

We flew into and out of MAN when we went to UK in August. We found it convenient for getting into the city, or anywhere else really (BIL got a direct train to Middlesbrough from there!) but we found that the airport itself was meh.

They certainly were not very well equipped to deal with anything out of the ordinary. Our fully loaded A380 had to make an emergency landing and we were stuck onboard for 3+ hours while ground staff found a tug to tow the plane to a hangar (not the terminal) then only 2 buses to get 600 passengers off the plane to we're still not sure where. We were dumped off the bus outside a building to collect luggage and that was it. The airline itself was gooapologies for the delays, etc, but it's not Emirates who organises for the tug or buses or information for passengers.

Pom_Chch

Not surprised! We have never considered flying AirNZ back to the UK. Premium prices for a non premium service, crap flight paths and takes far too long in comparison to other airline choices. China Southern return $1300, 28 hours with only one stop vs over $2000 with 2 stops, 35 hours. Hmmmmm.

carcajou

Yes. London is dropped entirely in favour of New York, and Air NZ is exiting the UK.

LittleGreyCat

To me the downside of flying through the USA is the requirement to go through immigration.
As far as I know most other countries treat you as in international transit and don't require local immigration clearance.
I haven't flown through the USA for many years so don't know how long the clearance takes but the speed of clearing in immigration is allegedly not that good.

carcajou

Iberia used to run a mini-hub out of Miami, where they would fly to/from Spain and Miami with the big bird and then connect their passengers on smaller Iberia aircraft to various points in Latin America. They had to can the mini-hub because of how laborious the transit requirements became for their passengers post-9/11.

hrowen

Varies a lot depending on time and place but I use global entry which is pretty much as fast as a citizen!

Tom H

It slightly got better when they moved to the Tom Bradley terminal and the Star Alliance lounge is one of the best in world. Must say the transit process is very hit and miss depending what side of bed the staff there have got out of.

It's a shame NZ1/NZ2 is being dropped. It's stunning taking off from the Californian coast. They probably shouldn't have dropped the Hong Kong route as that was far better and less competitive.

Oh well - direct flights with Singapore it is. That or fly via Hong Kong/Shanghai/San Fran to change on the excellent Virgin Atlantic. I'll miss flying direct with Air NZ - very good airline despite it being pricey. I much prefer them than American flights or the utterly hopeless British Airways.