Trip report: BNE-JFK - the 7th longest flight in the world

“Would you like water or champagne?

I’ve lucked out with an upgrade points request - but only for the three and a bit hour flight between Brisbane and Auckland. But still, anything is welcome on this long, long, flight. The next leg is sixteen hours - and the flight path tells me that it’ll take 40 minutes longer than normal.

I ask for a sparkling water. The FA - a New Zealander with teeth that are blindingly, unnaturally, white - goes to the galley and confidently returns… with a champagne.

Earlier, at 5am, my Uber driver picked me up in a Tesla. It was a balmy 17°C, so naturally, he had the heater on full blast inside his racist car. “Qantas international?” he asked - and was careful, at the airport, to drop me (in a disabled bay) as far away from the Qantas check-in as it’s possible to be.

Brisbane airport is still, slowly, being rebuilt for the Olympics. Much of the airport is shrouded in plasterboard and signage. The new bits are mostly some check-in desks - I don’t see a human being at all during that process - and a new set of passport scanners, which have halved in number but do thankfully work with my rather unruly passport.

To New Zealand

QF119 is fifteen minutes late to board. I’m on Kimberley, with wifi - and I last flew on Kimberley last year from Jakarta. She’s otherwise known as VH-EBO, an Airbus 330-200. This will be the fifth time I’ve flown BNE-AKL - last time was my trip to Niue (when I flew Air New Zealand).

“What would you like to drink with your breakfast?”

I look at the three types of juice. 

“Orange juice or apple juice?”

I look at the three types of juice. 

The white-teethed FA looks at me looking at the three types of juice.

We both silently acknowledge that I am looking at the three types of juice, but she has only offered me two of them.

“… or there’s this one”, she eventually says, holding a much more exciting blend of four fruit juices in my vague direction.

“Oooh, that looks exciting,” I say. “I’ll have that one.”

She looks less than delighted with my choice, and opens the bottle, which has until this point been inexplicably not chosen by the passengers in front of me.

Breakfast is good - an egg white omelette with white cheese, perfectly matching the flight attendant’s teeth, accompanied by a coffee and the exciting secret blend of fruit juice.

It’s a peculiar flight, this one. Proper long haul lie-flat seats, for a relatively quick flight over to Auckland. It won’t be the plane that I take to JFK: that has just left Sydney, also ten minutes late.

AKL

Auckland airport is, I discover, in bits: just like Brisbane, vast swathes of the airport are covered in plasterboard and signage. The floor is ripped up in various bits. So that’s nice.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to Auckland with Qantas, I suppose - since I was here last, the Qantas lounge has been entirely redeveloped. It’s quite nice and airy, but it’s also the most ostentatious lounge I’ve been to: Platinum flyers get to sit in a Special Section and have Special Food while flyers who aren’t as Special get to look at the Special People in the Special Section with their table service.

I get Neil Perry’s sausage. Girthy, thick, satisfying. It comes in a lentil soup, and is served with the smallest knife and fork you’ve ever seen. Eating soup with a fork is an interesting concept. I fail at it.

This Qantas lounge has local beer, though, which is a very welcome change. I’m treating myself because of the long flight, especially after this text.

AKL-JFK

And so, the 15 hour flight commences.

I’m on Snowy River, a five-year-old 787-9 that my iPhone’s autocorrect wishes to call Snot Rover.

I wait to get on board. The text saying “no upgrade for you” wasn’t altogether a big surprise; but on boarding the plane, there’s a big error noise and a red flashing light. My hopes rise - and I get ushered aside while someone fiddles with my records on the computer. I’ve been reseated in Premium Economy. Hurray. It isn’t business, but it’s a bigger seat at the back of the four-row PE section.

There’s also free wifi on this 14 hour flight. Qantas has resisted the temptation to charge for it. That’s a good thing. I don’t do any work, mind you, because it’s the weekend, but it’s nice to have.

The captain comes on the speakers, to tell us our route, over a bit of South America then what he perplexingly calls “the Gulf of America”. Really, Qantas?

“Happy Birthday, Mr Cridland!” says the FA over breakfast, handing me a handwritten note, a pair of pyjamas and a Qantas keyring. That’s a lovely gesture, but it isn’t my birthday, I explain to the confused FA. “It says it’s your birthday on our system,” she says, with a scowl. She drops the Free Stuff onto my lap anyway. I share the keyring with my next-door neighbour. She seems happy. The handwritten note doesn’t mention anything about a birthday. Perhaps I should have gone along with it being my birthday so that nobody felt embarrassed about it all. But then what happens if Qantas really has in my customer record that it’s my birthday today, because it absolutely isn’t and that could cause problems with immigration and stuff. This is very confusing.

After breakfast, the customer service manager arrives, holding a tray. “Here’s your flat white, Mr Cridland!”, he beams, triumphantly. I look at him. “Thank you,” I say, “but I didn’t order one. But,” I add hurriedly, “thank you”. The customer service manager explains: “It says on our system that you like a flat white.” This is true: but it’s also very confusing. I have the extra flat white anyway. I can’t help but think that I’d have asked for one if I wanted one.

Once, a few years ago, as soon as the seat belt went off, a FA appeared with the beer I always have. That was a nice gesture: since it appeared just before the drinks service, so was genuinely treating me with a bit of “special treatment”. However, it seems less special if you turn up unbidden after the main service with an extra thing you have already had one of. Weird.

We arrive nine minutes early. Thanks to the MPC app, I’m through passport control quickly - though my bag takes rather longer.

Things I did in New York apart from a conference

Got rained on

Saw a nice view from a rooftop bar

Saw an Australian coffee bar on the way to the place I was visiting for the week on my first day. Thought “excellent, I must try that”. Never saw it again.

Found another coffee shop with great SEO

Watched a sportsball match. The New York Mets didn’t win. I don’t know the name of the team that did.

JFK-BNE

Two days before the flight home, I get a very welcome text indeed - my upgrade request was accepted, and I get to to fly the 7th longest passenger flight in the world in business. Very excellent news. It cost 130,800 points, in case you’re wondering. That’s a lot of carefully purchased toilet roll at Woolworths, or, indeed, a lot of economy flights round the world. Actually, I’ll get back 15,850 for the economy flight I paid for, so it’s 114,950 in reality. Before this trip I had more than half a million, though.

This flight is AUD $1,681 in economy. It’s an eye-watering $13,030 in business. One way.

JFK airport is horrible to get to, and the “priority” security lane (available for any OneWorld status by the way) is seemingly a slower lane than anyone else. An angry bottle-blonde TSA guy gets snippy with travellers who don’t speak English as well as he does; I tell him, looking straight at his name ID badge, that he doesn’t need to be rude. He disappears - possibly to wait for me with a baseball bat somewhere.

Terminal 8 at JFK is the OneWorld international terminal; and the lounges are branded British Airways and American Airlines (I think they are AA operated). The lounge is full to bursting.

This is definitely a trip back in two halves.

The JFK-BNE long flight, on an 8 year-old wifi-equipped 787-9 “Waltzing Matilda”, is just as you would hope for business: a decent meal (with an excellent chunk of beef), followed by a decent sleep in a lie-flat bed. I’m prepared to even allow them a pass for not having any Coopers Pale Ale. Service was friendly. It’s a nice flight if you’re in business and spend most of it asleep. It’s probably $1,600 worth. It’s not $13,000 worth.

It landed early, luckily for me since I was a little nervous of missing the connection.

My AKL-BNE flight was also upgraded to business. But in spite of having a lie-flat on the way out, the plane on the way back was a 13 year-old 737-800, “Mclaren Vale”, which had a domestic layout of slightly bigger business seats. 24,000 points of upgrade for a breakfast that was kind of okay, but not much of a different experience otherwise. With wifi, I did some work while the old lady behind me smashed the hell out of the screen in the back of my seat.

We land back in Brisbane, fifteen minutes early. It feels like 4pm. It’s only 7.45am. I’m in for a long day…