Flight Review - YBBN to NZAA (Air New Zealand 320)

[Matthew]

Brisbane - Auckland flight review
Air New Zealand 732

I went on Air New Zealand flight 732 from Brisbane to Auckland, 732 is operated by a A320 and takes around 3 hours. Air New Zealand also operates 777-300ER to Brisbane once a day and another A320 service later in the day.

The aircraft

The aircraft was a short haul config A320 with a all economy layout. It had the star alliance livery the only one in the whole air New Zealand fleet. It is 13 years old and is soon to be replaced like other short haul 320 by the 320/321 neo.

Star alliance livery

All economy Config

Fare

On short haul flights (not domestic under 8 hours) Air New Zealand offers a range of fares to best suit the passenger. On the A320 these 4 options are shown below. Note on the widebody short haul there is the addition of Premium economy and Business premier. I was on a Seat fare I will explain what that gets me later in the review section. My family saves $130 using seat fare return (including inflight purcheses). The Works offers a fully fledged meal and free snacks/drinks from touchscreen.

The Review

As you sit down you are welcomed on the ife with your name (or what you want to be called ‘matta’ 😂)

The seat is nice but not as good as the leather seats on Air New Zealand domestic 320 services, the seat pitch though great offering a good amount of room. The seat also offers a USB port but no charger like widebody Air New Zealand aircraft.

With a Seat fare I get no food without paying but get the full IFE experience apart from movies which I payed $5NZD for using the credit card slider. For nothing you get access to TV shows, Games, Music, Seat chat and many other cool IFE functions. You also get a nice set of headphones, Koru Elite members also get noise cancelling headphones. Though the IFE content may not compete with Emarites IFE it extremely easy to use.

If you want food and drinks inflight on a seat fare you can order from your touchscreen and they are delivered to you. The touchscreen is a fully responsive screen which was really good. The selection of snacks was okay I got a sandwich and Coke Zero sugar.

The service was really good throughout the flight and just like every Air New Zealand flight you get free water and lollies to suck on before descent. During descent I filmed a timelapse it was a stunning view of the New Zealand Coast.

Verdict

Great flight would completely recommend everything ran smoothly we arrived 10 minutes ahead of schedule as a bonus to the great service from the crew. Trans Tasman services are some of the most competitive services on the globe just on this route there is 3 other airlines operating with multiple widebody and narrowbody flights a day, hopefully this review helps anyone flying transtasman.

Seat

Pitch 9/10
Quality 7/10

IFE

Content 7/10
Ease to use 10/10
Features 9/10

Service

Food 7/10
Crew friendless 9/10
Punctually 10/10

Total 72/80
Excellent

[MisterButler]

Does it really display your name on the IFE? That is really interesting.

[Matthew]

Yeah it’s quite cool

[MisterButler]

How does it work? Do you input your name into it or something else?

[Marc]

Wow. Seeing those kind of reviews I always start to think that our European carriers could really learn a thing of foreign airlines.

Let’s take SWISS:
I was really surprised when I flew with WestJet in November 2017. They are a LowCost Carrier but the product they’re offering on their 737-700 is way better than the product SWISS is offering.

First of all: There is no IFE on the SWISS short snd medium haul planes, like the A320 and A321. There’s not even WIFI on board.

And even though you have WIFI on the long haul fleet of SWISS, you pay USD 20.- for only 50MB! On WestJet, I payed less for unlimited WIFI during the whole flight.

You get something to drink and to eat on SWISS medium haul as well. But they’re currently thinking about canceling that service as well, if you’re traveling with the lowest fare, which is like Air NewZealands „Seat“ fare.

It’s disappointing if you’re looking at the ticket price you pay with SWISS.

[Matthew]

Basically they know who’s sitting in each seat (as each seat is booked under a name) so they put it onto screen.

[Matthew]

Yeah all Air New Zealand international flights have IFE. Wifi is getting implemented soon but it’s tough getting good wifi system as most lot of Air New Zealand routes fly over isolated areas of the pacific ocean.

[Aussie_Wombat]

If you want food and drinks inflight on a seat fare you can order from your touchscreen and they are delivered to you. The touchscreen is a fully responsive screen which was really good. The selection of snacks was okay I got a sandwich and Coke Zero sugar.

I usually go with The Works for trans-Tasman on airNZ. All that’s free and you can order it as much as you want :P It’s pretty nice

[Matthew]

Yeah flights were expensive so we went with seat. The works is great.

[Aussie_Wombat]

Oh, I thought it was with your airpoints account when you book the flight. Because I got my name displayed because I had my airpoints number logged for the flight but my family didn’t get it

[Matthew]

Yeah it might be airpoints actually. Wasn’t 100% sure though.

[cr1ck3ter]

I flew on that very A320 (star alliance livery) from the gold coast to christchurch a couple of years ago.

[Matthew]

Nice plane ain’t it?

[anon31652286]

I flew on that exact Air NZ A320 with the Star Alliance livery a few years ago as well! It was Sydney to Queenstown.

[Matthew]

2 people on the forum have stood at the entrance of the plane just as I have wow.

Crazy to think where I stood on plane you guys been on flight before on.

[anon31652286]

But did I sit in the same seat?? O_o

[Matthew]

I sat 7A you could of sat there 🤭😮

[Connor]

It’s airpoints. They have your name on file, and if you have an airpoints account the use that. Or they just use the name. That you used when booking

[Qantas737guy]

DO I spot Duma tea? Did you try it?

[Matthew]

No i didn’t unfortunately