Cheap way home
Today I slowly make my way towards my family in hometown Kuching for Chinese New Year. At this time of year flights there are expensive, but I found a special deal to Bali for NZD544 return, on Virgin Australia with great connections. Allowing for nightstops and the shorthaul flights to Kuching, it would still be less than any other fare.
The only bad point I could think of was the early departure from Auckland at 0715. I got dropped off at the airport around 0530 to find a horrendous queue for their check-in counters. I think they have three flights leaving at the same time.
Starting off
The check-in area comprised of a manual boarding pass counter, kiosks and manual bagdrop counters further along. As I had done an online check-in and only needed to verify my passport, I asked the staff where I should start. She pointed me to the kiosks. Unfortunately that didn’t work and I was redirected to the manual boarding pass desk just next to it. That was all sorted pretty quickly but then I realised that I probably needed to have joined the long snaking queue for the kiosk and the manual boarding pass counter. Ah well!
Getting airside was a breeze today which meant that I had about 40 mins in the lounge for a light bite. I then got a message saying that my connecting flight to Bali had been delayed by 7h18. That would mean a connection in Sydney of around 10h rather than 2h25!