With many future trips booked it is unusual not to get a schedule change notification from an airline every day or so.  Most of the time these are relatively unimportant changes like flight renumbering by Continental and United, or a tweak of 5 or 10 minutes to the arrival and/or departure time. 

Nonetheless, I check the notifications fairly religiously just in case of a more significant change.  I’m glad I do this, for I’ve had some fairly nasty ones lately.

Case 1

An airline rebooked me on a flight the previous day.  Given the flight still operates on the date I had booked I don’t know why I was shifted by the airline.  Perhaps they could resell my seat for another fare on the day I’d chosen?  Or perhaps they got confused – I see the flight now shows as being 30 hours duration.  Hmmm.

As if shifting the date of travel wasn’t bad enough, the airline failed to spot they’d now given me a connection time of minus 20 hours between flights.  Oops.  Lucky I carefully read the change notifications and pay attention to dates as well as times.  They couldn’t even point a finger at another airline for such a basic mistake as I’m connecting between two flights with the same airline!

After some chasing up I have been restored to the date I was originally booked, but for some unknown reason they had to reissue the whole ticket and I see the coupons are now out of order.  That can’t be good.

Case 2

On an upcoming around the world ticket I have 6 flights with a particular airline.  All 6 flights have changed schedules (some more than once) and the latest iteration of changes (affecting all 6 flights) has created two problem connections.  One has 10 minutes between scheduled arrival time and scheduled departure time at the airport, during which time there is immigration and a terminal change.  Another is slightly better at just over an hour, but again has immigration in between flights.

Some playing around with airline schedules and my tight timeframes available and it looks like I may have to change several flights and reroute a couple of times to make it work again. 

In both cases I’ve had a look at the flight options and availability before calling the airline to sort it out so I can hopefully end up with a new itinerary that will work for me (albeit less ideal than my original booking in the 2nd case).  This helps when customer service agents may not think to check non-obvious solutions.

Being proactive instead of waiting until close to departure (or worse at the airport) maximises the chances I can get something to work out.  There are some situations where, for some people, waiting may be better – e.g. if looking for an excuse to cancel the ticket without penalty.

Mr Stuker is about to pass 10,000,000 miles flown on United Airlines.  That is a huge distance – over 400 times around the world, or 20 times to the moon and back.

Some people think I fly a lot, but I’ve flown less than 3 million miles, and spread across many airlines.

Dan Poynter of AirTravelHandbook.com is planning to fly around the world on commercial flights in 2 days.  If everything goes to plan it will take Dan just over 50 hours to fly from Los Angeles to Los Angeles, via Washington, Dubai, Singapore and Taipei.  Strictly, his trip meets the airline definition of an around the world, but not the Guinness World Record definition (since there is no crossing of the equator).

Some people may think Dan is a bit mad, but who am I to talk?  Four years ago I flew around the world on Air New Zealand in under 60 hours - Auckland to Auckland via Los Angeles, London and Hong Kong.  Due to airline schedules I even had time for a side trip to Belfast from London.

Apologies for the lack of recent posts.

Although I’m not based in Christchurch, post-earthquake my life has been rather different (and much busier) than pre-earthquake.  I’m still travelling just as much (if not more than usual), but only short hops at the moment. I’m getting good at picking up 45 minutes of sleep onboard these short flights, and some more on the way to and from the airport.

I’ve managed to avoid most flight cancellations although an upcoming trip wasn’t so fortunate.  What started out as a 8 segment booking (4 each way) is now up to 11 segments.  Luckily I had enough of a buffer in my plans to cope with some significant reroutings along the way.

My day got off to a bad start when I slept through the alarm and awoke 45 minutes before departure.  I was 15 minutes drive from the airport and it would take me 10 minutes to get a taxi.

Somehow I still made the flight.  Luckily I was already checked in and I was the last person to board.

My relief turned to despair shortly after we pushed back when I realised through the fog of a sleep-deprived mind that had barely woken up, that we were not moving onto the runway.  In the few moments after pushback the cloud had lowered enough to make flights marginal and we were waiting the situation out.  Fortunately the cloud lifted enough half an hour later to allow our flight to go.  Half an hour delay isn’t too bad of a delay – it could easily have been much worse.

One of the things I love about flying all over New Zealand is the amazing, and highly varied, scenery that can be seen out the window.  It seems I’m not alone. To mark the arrival of the All Blacks painted domestic A320 Air NZ has provided a game to “fly” all over New Zealand with Google Earth imagery for the views.

For those who missed it, here is a video of the special livery A320 being built and painted.

Air NZ All Blacks A320 build and paint

When you fly a lot you get to know how much time you need for connections at various airports.  My recent experiences at Sydney terminal 1 (international) suggest I need to recalibrate the “safe” transfer time, by increasing it.

In the past few weeks I’ve had aircraft use a gate on the opposite pier to the usual one – Oneworld flights arriving at the non-Oneworld pier and non-Oneworld flights arriving at the Oneworld pier.  If connecting to a different aircraft, or if wanting to use the lounge (eg for a shower) the 10-15 minutes walk between piers can make a tight connection into a very rushed one.  Indeed it is now common to see aircraft on the opposite pier from “usual” at Sydney international terminal.

I’ve also had flights arrive at a remote stand, which adds a good 20 minutes to the transfer time by the time you wait for a bus, get bussed to the terminal and then walk to international transfers or immigration.

Others who’ve cleared immigration at Sydney on an early morning arrival have commented to me how much longer immigration is taking, even if you have access to the automated Smartgate system.

Sometimes I get blase and push the boundary of reasonableness in my transits, and this is a reminder to myself not to take assumed knowledge as infallible.  The world changes all the time, and the travel world changes rapidly too.

I’ve had some flights were I’ve been the only person in a (premium) cabin, including some memorable ones with Singapore Airlines.  But I can’t recall a flight on a widebody aircraft in the past few years where the total number of passengers was less than 40 (on an aircraft that seats about 250).  When a flight is this empty service can be fantastic, or crew can take the opportunity for an easy flight (with mediocre service).  I’m glad this most recent “empty” flight had fantastic service.

It has been a while since my last inaugural flight and so I’m being tempted by a few inaugural flights which are coming up in my neck of the woods.

They are a lot of fun, but oh so frivolous.

A recent post on travel enjoyment at the Freakonomics blog commented on some research on whether the act of travel is as enjoyable as the destination.  Their findings were that most people enjoy the act of travelling as enjoyable as being at the destination (perhaps they didn’t ask people  stranded by snow in the US northeast or Europe?).  This makes sense to me.

They then inferred that there is a limit to how much we enjoy the process of travel, because “few respondents reported that they travel without an ultimate destination in mind”.

I think for many people that may be true, however there are many people at Flyer Talk and some other travel communities where this is definitely not true (and nor is it for me).

What do you think? Is getting there half the fun?