Air New Zealand Complaint - Nightmare Return Flight - Flight

Flight - Complaint

Review by nik44 on 2008-12-04

We flew from London to Los Angeles RT over this Thanksgiving holiday. The flight over was nothing to write about but returning to London was a nightmare. The Boeing 777 must have had its air conditioning out as the plane was hot and stuffy the whole time. The service crew was edgy and un-attentive, perhaps they had stayed on from the Auckland leg.

We were 40 minutes early arriving in London and on approach the pilot had used full spoilers and flaps at one point. When he put the spoilers away the aircraft pitched forward alarmingly while descending through the clouds.

We then taxied here and there for 90 minutes (I looked at my watch) while either waiting for planes to vacate our original arrival gate or looking for a new arrival gate and then another and another and finally ended up debarking on the tarmac at a remote corner of the air field.

It was embarrassingly obvious that the traffic controller was messing us about and it felt as though we were unwanted guests being carted around in a stiflingly hot aircraft as a test of our stamina in leg crossing and claustrophobia control.

When the flight attendant announced that the entertainment system was being turned back on, the situation ironically reminded me of the "Eddie's Airways" skit from an old Jerry Lewis movie.

This airline gets no respect in the UK we certainly won't be flying with it again.