A turn of events and chance meeting changed my target of getting to all 26 airports a little more of a reality. I had heard through Flyertalk that there was a meeting planned with the top brass at AirNZ in Wellington in a sort of roadshow to come and talk with their customers (primarily it appeared as the travel budget holders for large companies) and some regular fliers mixed in. I managed to get myself on the guestlist after asking someone at AirNZ. I will to save embarassment, not mention any names....
Most of the top people were there to talk to about the upcoming changes for the Tasman route including new A320's to operate those routes and the new 773 planes for some longhaul routes due in November. I believe that the older A320's will be put on the domestic network, presumably with a refreshed cabin? The Tasman route and restructuring has caused much dischord amongst the frequent flier community, with the abolition of Business class from the 763 and A320 planes flying to Oz and the Pacific Islands. Most of the angst was also concerning the removal of Space+ and no tangible benefits for holding NG *G or *GE. Anyway there is plenty of discussion of this on Flyertalk so will leave that there.
After a good evening chatting to a variety of AirNZ people, I received a phone call at work the next day from Eagle Airways, part of the NZ group. They had heard about my quest and wanted to find out which airports i had left. I explained my remaining list and that I wasn't bothered about staying for any length of time.
A few days later I got another call from Eagle Airways and that they were arranging an itinery for me to get a couple of airports off the list.....
So the next few flights are courtesy of AirNZ and Eagle Airways as it happened that the routes I was after were all on the Eagle Airways network....and of course this means plenty of B1900D flights!
I cannot say enough to thank the people at AirNZ and Eagle for arranging many of the following flights. especially as some of the itineries are rather hectic and fun!
Showing posts with label flying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flying. Show all posts
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
The Idea - stupid but still an idea
I had a thought one day at the beginning of the year.
Firstly, a little background - I have a passion for flying. Not in the plane spotter sense, standing at the end of runways with a notepad and binoculars, but a real enthusiasm for flying around the world visiting a few interesting places along the way and looking around the inside of airports.
The passion began in the summer (northern hemisphere) of 2004. My fiance at the time had completed a long hard graft of studying and wanted to take off and see some more of New Zealand (we had visited in 2001 for four weeks). This was the other side of the world as we were living in the UK. The plan was that we would meet up in a months time in LA and cruise up the west coast of USA to Vancouver. So I searched for one way flights to LA as I had managed to amass enough BA miles to get us home from New York in Business Class.
I decided to splurge the cash and find a cheap business flight to LA. Ended up going on Aer Lingus, which not being a pro of J class at the time, thought was pretty splendid, travelling in 1A and sampling lots of fine wine and grub. My fiance was put out when she found out I went J after she had endured a flight from AKL to LAX in the back....The flight home with BA on the upper deck more than made up for it though.
Well, after those two flights and in particular the BA flight home, I was totally hooked on travelling toward the front of the plane and my love affair with flying truely began.
Fast forward 6 years and lots of First and Business flights later and a move to New Zealand, I had come up with an idea, albeit a seemingly stupid idea.
I had managed to obtain the top tier (Gold Elite) of Air New Zealand's frequent flyer programme with a carefully constructed RTW trip via oz, tahiti, hong kong, USA and the proper destination of UK to visit friends and family. I had become acquainted with everything Air NZ and am really impressed by their offerings both domestic and internationally. Coming for the UK I am amazed at the domestic network that NZ has. They fly to no less than 26 domestic airports!
Through work and a bit of sightseeing, I noted that I had been to 7 of the airports already by the end of 2009. Then it struck me, why don't I visit all 26 airports? And lets do it by July.
So there you have it. I have decided to fly to all 26 domestic airports by the end of July. I am certainly not the first person to do this (there is a particularly famous person around some parts of the internet who has done this and even extended that to every port that NZ flies to in the world...), and probably wont be the last. But, there aren't that many people around who have embarked on this odd mission.
Why? - Well, no specific reason I guess, just thought I would give it a go.
I am going to do a few back dated posts to get up to speed with the previous airports I have visited and hopefully try to work out how to put a countdown timer thingy on this blog.
Watch this space....
Firstly, a little background - I have a passion for flying. Not in the plane spotter sense, standing at the end of runways with a notepad and binoculars, but a real enthusiasm for flying around the world visiting a few interesting places along the way and looking around the inside of airports.
The passion began in the summer (northern hemisphere) of 2004. My fiance at the time had completed a long hard graft of studying and wanted to take off and see some more of New Zealand (we had visited in 2001 for four weeks). This was the other side of the world as we were living in the UK. The plan was that we would meet up in a months time in LA and cruise up the west coast of USA to Vancouver. So I searched for one way flights to LA as I had managed to amass enough BA miles to get us home from New York in Business Class.
I decided to splurge the cash and find a cheap business flight to LA. Ended up going on Aer Lingus, which not being a pro of J class at the time, thought was pretty splendid, travelling in 1A and sampling lots of fine wine and grub. My fiance was put out when she found out I went J after she had endured a flight from AKL to LAX in the back....The flight home with BA on the upper deck more than made up for it though.
Well, after those two flights and in particular the BA flight home, I was totally hooked on travelling toward the front of the plane and my love affair with flying truely began.
Fast forward 6 years and lots of First and Business flights later and a move to New Zealand, I had come up with an idea, albeit a seemingly stupid idea.
I had managed to obtain the top tier (Gold Elite) of Air New Zealand's frequent flyer programme with a carefully constructed RTW trip via oz, tahiti, hong kong, USA and the proper destination of UK to visit friends and family. I had become acquainted with everything Air NZ and am really impressed by their offerings both domestic and internationally. Coming for the UK I am amazed at the domestic network that NZ has. They fly to no less than 26 domestic airports!
Through work and a bit of sightseeing, I noted that I had been to 7 of the airports already by the end of 2009. Then it struck me, why don't I visit all 26 airports? And lets do it by July.
So there you have it. I have decided to fly to all 26 domestic airports by the end of July. I am certainly not the first person to do this (there is a particularly famous person around some parts of the internet who has done this and even extended that to every port that NZ flies to in the world...), and probably wont be the last. But, there aren't that many people around who have embarked on this odd mission.
Why? - Well, no specific reason I guess, just thought I would give it a go.
I am going to do a few back dated posts to get up to speed with the previous airports I have visited and hopefully try to work out how to put a countdown timer thingy on this blog.
Watch this space....
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