QF LAX to AKL

Hello...

Anyone know if I'd stand a chance going standby on QF on the LAX-AKL nonstop in early April? I think that should be outside the busy season, but you never know.

Thanks.


Tim

Early April is the end of first term school vacation break down this way. If you use QF beware that some of their AKL flights continue to BNE or SYD, meaning you will have pax for two cities on board. Get back-ups on NZ - they run minimum of 2, sometimes 3 or 4 LAX-AKL flights per night.

Would sometime in March be any better as far as availability,do you think? I was trying to avoid peak travel time to/in NZ.

I'm just seeing 1 QF LAXAKL flight daily, #026. Are there others I don't know about? I would be going with my partner, and NZ doesn't do partner standby with my airline (HP), but QF does (ZED-M).

I was thinking of getting LAXSYD as a backup (QF does 4x day), since it seems there are many SYDAKL flights daily. A little longer and out of the way, but better than being stuck. It even looks like US does LAXSYD, and with the recent news about them, I'd imagine customers aren't running out and booking them.

Thanks.

Yeah - one of the others has gone missing. Used to be a QF149 or similar a few days per week.
It's possibly gone when they introduced LAX-BNE nonstop.
If you are worried about only limiting yourself to 1 x daily LAX-AKL nonstop, as you said, there are plenty of other alternates. Apart from the SYD flights you mentioned there are also others to both BNE and MEL.
Does Cactus have partner agreements with Air Pacific? They run LAX-NAN-AKL.

Thanks for the replies back Al. No, it doesn't look like we have an Interline agreement with Air Pacific, which is strange, since it seems we have one with nearly every other airline.

It does seem that QF updates the seats available by class that I see in Shares, so I'll try to see if I can find any patterns to when it looks busier, and go from there. I'll plan for the 'ideal' nonstop LAXAKL, then also have a backup or 2, probably through SYD, unless those seem to fill up closer to the time I'll go.

Trying to schedule the trip so that I get some half-decent weather there, without overfull flights. March can be difficult to fly within the US (Spring Break), but HP has so many PHXLAX flights that I'm not overly concerned.

Thanks again.

The weather will have well and truly turned by early/mid April over in N.Z.
Nights will be cool if not chilly and days won't be all that warm.
Another one to look at is Air Tahiti Nui - they fly LAX-PPT-AKL.
Good Luck

This is strange, for Air Tahiti (VT--within Tahiti only), we have an agreement that is good for partners; for Air Tahiti Nui (TN--outside Tahiti) we do have an agreement, but it doesn't include partners.

I thought there were carriers that flew HNL-AKL, but I'm not finding any. Guess those have been scaled back. There's very few that even fly HNL-SYD.

Oh well, I guess I'll stick to my plan with a backup LAX-SYD.

VT and TN are totally different companies so it's not odd that there's a seperate agreement for each.
HNL-SYD and v.v. has not many options, agreed.
QF 3 x weekly, HA 4 x weekly and AC either 1 x daily or 2 x daily.

Hello again,

We decided to put this trip off until October and take 2 weeks, see a bit of NZ...

With that in mind, does anyone know if there are school holidays in NZ in October, and when? I'm thinking of Oct 14 to 30.

Is that an OK time for nonrev to/inside NZ? Along with the LAXAKL flights, I'm thinking of flying AKLCHC (one way) then driving back up.

I know the weather will be cool and more than likely wet...but will be nice to get away from the last of the desert heat here, and hopefully the last of it will be gone when we return to PHX.

Thanks for all the help.

PS: If anyone is interested, this is still a great time here in PHX...nice weather, wildflowers in bloom, baseball spring training...nonrev can be tricky though.