Day 1 – We take to the air – Wellington to Frankfurt

  

For those who have no interest in reading about the flight to Frankfurt please wait for the next instalment.

 

We blew the budget by flying business class.  I had been in the process of booking our usual premium economy seats when I noticed that for only a little more we could travel in style.  Part of me thinks this will be the last time we go to Europe so why not make the trip a little more comfortable. 

 

My intention when we were planning to go premium economy was to stopover in Singapore for a night to get a decent night’s sleep before proceeding to Frankfurt.  As we were going business class with the opportunity sleep on board we decided not to stopover in Singapore.

 

We left a fine evening in Wellington to arrive in rain at Auckland Airport.  Rather than walking to the international terminal we took the shuttle. 

 

We had a three hour wait Auckland and then shortly before midnight we were getting on board or B777.  One of the nice things about flying Air New Zealand business class is Bev and I can have meal together at 36,000ft.  It was nice way to start our trip.  A little of bit of champagne for me and a reasonably nice meal.  It was a light meal given the time of day and before we knew it we were trying to get to sleep in a very noisy environment with 300 other people.  I quickly went to sleep having not had much the night before and managed about 5 hours which is quite good for me.  The only hiccup was some turbulence that felt like being in a well sprung vehicle going over cobblestones with odd pothole. 

 

We had a six-hour layover in Singapore before boarding our next flight to Frankfurt.  It went remarkably quickly. We even had time to visit the butterfly garden and for a close encounter with a robotic wheel chair in the terminal. 

In the butterfly enclosure

 

Our flight on the A380 was over twenty minutes late leaving.  Business class takes up the whole of the top deck of the A380.  We had window seats.  The seating arrangement so somewhat different.  The seats are roomier but we found out that the sleeping arrangement requires some bodily contortions.  You have to lie on a diagonal to get the feet into a slot under the seat in front.  Not the most comfortable!  I thought the food on Air New Zealand overall was better than Singapore Airlines.  The Singapore food was ok but we both thought our light dinner, a few hours before landing was decidedly second rate.  The wine on Singapore Airlines was not as good Air New Zealand Business class.  So, in my opinion the Business Class of Air NZ is as good as Singapore Airlines.  This is not how the reviews typically rate the two with Singapore getting the gongs. 

 

Finally, we arrived in Frankfurt after 24 hours of flying with another 9 hours of waiting for flights.  Much had been made of the time it would take to get through customs but for us it was a reasonably quick process. An hour or so after landing we were at the hotel.  Encountering a pub with many people in a boisterous mood watching what must have been a very tense soccer match on the wayl. We were rather tired of course!


A robotic chair



Comments

  1. Rob M.18 April 2026 at 15:29

    Good to hear that you travelled well and interesting feedback on Singapore Airlines v Air N.Z. Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Susan18 April 2026 at 17:04

      Sounds like a long trip but good to do it in style!

      Delete

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