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Will Fatties Fit On Air New Zealand's New 'SkyCouch?'

So yesterday in the land of the Kiwis, Air New Zealand unveiled their "revolutionary, Kiwi designed lie-flat economy and ground breaking premium economy seats," and initially we were thrilled at the promise of lie-flat seats in economy...until we saw the pictures.

That's it above, their "lie-flat" design, which depicts your pretty typical airline seats, but now with footrests that can raise to create a larger flat surface for stretching out. It's called the "SkyCouch," and although the light of heaven seems to be shining down upon the young, beautiful couple, we're skeptical.

Our concerns and a video after the jump.

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Tags: Travel Advertising / Travel Ads / Air New Zealand / Cougars / Cougar Travel / → All Tags

Is Air New Zealand's Racy 'Cougars' Ad Really All That Bad?

As a travel blog with both a specific Cougar Travel category and a generic Cougars category, we understand we might be a little biased on this question. But we're nonetheless a little bit skeptical about the controversy coming out of New Zealand, where an Air New Zealand contest and ad is drawing vociferous criticism from rape prevention and survival groups. It's not that rape isn't a serious issue, and we're obviously not making the "men can't get raped" argument. It's just that we're having trouble seeing "pro-sexual violence" in this lighthearted campaign.

The contest offered cougars—defined for Air New Zealand's purposes as any 35+ woman who preys on men at least 10 years her junior—the opportunity to win free tickets to a rugby tournament. Contestants had to send pictures of themselves and their "cougar mates" out on the town. The objections are coming from New Zealand's Rape Prevention Education, which insists that the ad&3151;the ad, not the contest—is degrading to women and insulting to male rape survivors. Again we're highly skeptical. Is it really the phrase "meat hungry cougars," which is one of the lines that keeps getting cited? Eh.

If nothing else, the entire absurdist tone of the fake nature documentary makes it hard to take anything about it seriously. Luckily the magic of the internet allows us to embed the ad, which we've done after the jump. See for yourself.

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Tags: Jaunted Flight Reviews / Business Class Travel / Premium Economy / Airlines / Air New Zealand / Travel Tips / → All Tags

How to Score an Upgrade on Air New Zealand: A Tale of Woe

The view from our bed. Score!

Isn’t traveling just great these days? All those wonderful rules to abide by, the generous baggage fees to pay—what’s not to love about flying? But in case you’re the fussy type and want to get upgraded, here’s how it worked for us on our London-LA journey from hell on Air New Zealand.

As we said before, the check-in procedure for our flight was a bugger’s muddle—staff were uninformed, unhelpful and made us swear never to fly ANZ again. Luckily we stood our ground even after losing the battle of the carry-on bag, and demanded to have words with the Operations Managerat the gate. Even luckier, she was very nice, heard us out and apologized for how we’d been treated. So we boarded slightly mollified.

After the jump, how we got into Business Class

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Tags: Travel Rants / Security / Airlines / Airport Security / Air New Zealand / Carry-On Luggage / TSA / Jaunted Flight Reviews / → All Tags

Flying London to LA, We Had Issues With Everything But In-Flight Security

Warning: your seat may be wet and check-in staff might ruin your day. Enjoy your flight!

Flying transatlantic any time soon? Here are a few simple tips to help you survive.

1: Bring as little luggage as possible in case they tell you at check-in that the rules have changed from when you spoke to them two days ago.
2: Get there very early, in case said check-in folk decide to aid your departure by wasting an hour arguing with you and making you repack your bags.
3: Make sure you leave room in said modest hand luggage for some prescription meds. You might find it hard to reach the gate without being in an Ambien haze.

Why the negativity? Because last Tuesday, we flew from London to Los Angeles with Air New Zealand. We booked it back in October, and were highly excited because of the good stuff we’d heard about the airline and its nekked flight attendants. We’d even splashed out on a Premium Economy ticket because it was not much more than economy on the dates we’d chosen, but gave us the same baggage allowance as business class. And we thought we were in for a smooth ride. Ha!

Our flight gets very bumpy, after the jump...

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Tags: Airline Uniforms / Air New Zealand / Airline News / Flight Attendants / In-Flight Fashion / Fashion Travel / → All Tags

Flight Attendant Fashion: Pink Uniforms Through History

Big things are happening over at Air New Zealand, because along with the introduction of a new fleet of 777-300s coming in 2011, they'll be freshening up the flight attendant fashion with new looks from Kiwi designer Trelise Cooper.

Those are the proposed designs above—flight attendant, manager, ground staff—and even though we think them quite chic and flattering, others are taking special offense at the pink dress, calling it a "Barbie uniform." Although pink isn't exactly an ideal color for everyone's complexions (nor for spending 8+ hours a day in), it could be a lot worse, as demonstrated by the history of flight attendant fashion.

Also: we'd like to call your attention to the fact that the pink color in the picture is totally photoshopped in! They did a quick job of photoshopping the color, and you can tell that the original design was the green of the blouse in the ground staff outfit. But we digress.

After the jump, we take a look at pink airline uniforms throughout history...

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Tags: Facebook / Video Games / Airline News / Air New Zealand / → All Tags

Air New Zealand's New Facebook Game Is A Wannabe FarmVille

You know how sometimes we complain that airlines invest in social media just so they can say they've invested in social media, with their "investments" quickly becoming "predictable losses" that we end up paying for (often in the form of insanely obnoxious opaque fees)? There's a lot of back and forth on the debate, and we understand that reasonable people will differ over whether an airline needs a Facebook page for branding purposes. But can't we all agree that Air New Zealand's new Facebook game Jump Seat—developed because some consultant showed some middle manager the user statistics from Farmville—is painfully stupid?

Here's how it goes:

Jump Seat players can upload pictures to create their very own avatars as Air New Zealand Flight Attendants or First Officers. Once en route, players answer trivia questions, play mini games and complete onboard tasks... Recruit Facebook friends to help fluff pillows for the lie-flat beds; recommend and refill New Zealand wine, a key component of the airline's world-class service; send fellow flight attendants gifts of energy points for a boost; and tag team to ensure all passengers have an excellent in-flight experience.

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Tags: Wine Travel / Qantas / Air New Zealand / Drinking Travel / In-Flight Meals / → All Tags

Recession Or Not, Airlines Still Serve Top Wines To Elite Passengers

We poked fun at Qantas earlier this month for banning beer on their flights, so it's only fair we pass along this story about their in-flight drink leadership in the wine department. The Australian national airline leads the industry in serving fine vino to their first class and business class passengers, impressing even the palates of professional wine tasters. And taking the #1 slot isn't exactly easy, since the airline industry as a whole is stacked with corporations serving quality wines not just to elite customers but even in coach.

None of this will be news to Jaunted readers, who know that LAN Airlines sought out South America's solitary master wine sommelier to pick out their wine list. But the degree to which airlines are willing to go is still impressive, especially in an age of across-the-board cost cutting. Keep in mind that they're not getting directly reimbursed for any wine served in non-coach cabins, and now read this description of how far they're going to maintain customer loyalty:

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Air New Zealand Wants To Sell Us A Coach-Middle-Seat-Bed Thing

We might be a little premature in declaring a new travel trend, but it appears that selling empty middle seats is the new checked baggage fee. WestJet recently shed a little light on plans to make passengers a little more comfy while cashing in at the same time. Now Air New Zealand, the airline that loves wacky stuff like in-flight dating and body paint, is looking to do the same thing.

As part of a total makeover of the airline—they’re looking to change up their livery and uniforms among other things—they want to sell empty middle seats to coach passengers. If the seat next to you is empty it will be yours as long as you are willing to part with $150. You’ll even be allowed to fully stretch out, as apparently the two seats will slide forward to make some sort of economy bed. They are still hush hush about all the details, and they want to wait until next year before revealing all the secrets about the new seating configurations.

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Air New Zealand's Matchmaking Flight Hits The Lonely Skies Tomorrow

That Air New Zealand Matchmaking flight we've been telling you about is finally taking off tomorrow. The LAX to Auckland event aims to bring together singles for a raucous itinerary of love connecting (or, failing that, sex). There will be a shindig at the gate in Los Angeles, with party packs and an open bar, followed by some in-flight activities. There are more parties after the flight lands, with the whole thing emceed by Jason Mesnick and girlfriend Molly Malaney of The Bachelor fame.

Yeah, listen. The flight from Los Angeles to Auckland is over 6,500 miles long and takes about 13 hours once you factor in takeoff and landing. Romeo and Juliet would get sick of each other about 8 hours into the trip. Romeo, Juliet, and all their best friends would all get grumpy after about 10 hours. That's just too much time in an airplane to feel good about your life, let alone the existence of another human being.

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Air New Zealand Seeks Help From 'The Bachelor' For Its Matchmaking Flight

What is going on with Air New Zealand these days? They are releasing one gimmicky promo after the next. First, there was the group of people who wore body advertisements for the Kiwi airline, then came airline employees covered in body paint, followed by the announcement of a matchmaking flight and then some more body paint.

This time, the matchmaking flight from Los Angeles to Auckland has decided to bring onboard a successful love match to inspire hope in the other singletons on the flight—Jason Mesnick and his girlfriend, Molly of the ABC show, "The Bachelor."

The October 13 trip is all about finding love (and filling up Air New Zealand planes), with a plane load of singles heading down to Auckland for a major party. And we're expecting at least a few Kiwi-American marriages to come out of this.

Since everyone else will be single, we're not sure that inviting Jason and Molly along is quite the right thing to do, but there's definitely one good side to it – to celebrate this announcement, Air New Zealand is offering tickets at $200 off. If you book by Wednesday with the LOVE200 code=, you'll get your return Los Angeles to Auckland flight plus all the attached partying for $580, which is a pretty low price to pay for the prospect of some Kiwi love.

Related Stories:
· The Matchmaking Flight [Official Site]
· From Body Paint to Matchmaking: Air New Zealand is Feeling Frisky [Jaunted]
· Air New Zealand Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: thetruthabout]

Tags: Airline Safety / Airline Safety Videos / Air New Zealand / Thomson Airways / → All Tags

Airlines Getting Creative With Pre-Flight Safety Videos

Airlines have developed a suspicion - from where, we have no idea - that we passengers aren't really listening to their pre-flight safety instructions. Apparently they feel that their prerecorded soliloquies about emergency doors and water landings are being adhered to with something less than rapt attention.

In response, they're going out of their way to get passenger eyeballs onto video monitors. Virgin America changed up the game first with their cartoon safety instruction video which has tongue-in-cheek humor and shows a cute girl with a bad nicotine habit and a nun that is more plugged in than a 13-year-old boy.

And how could we forget Deltalina? In fact, we really wish we could forget the image of her botoxed face telling us to put on a seatbelt.

Now, everyone of course knows about Air New Zealand's new naked safety video, which we covered while it was being produced. The final commercial is currently inching its way toward 4 million views on YouTube. Reasonably attractive but suitably everyday male and female attendants in body paint. It's viral magic.

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Air New Zealand Sends Its Biofuel Jumbo Jet to the Wreckers

Usually Air New Zealand is pretty eager to share its wacky promotions and latest news, but this time not so much. Remember when they were all proud about their biofuel test flight? Well, it must not have worked out that well, since they are preparing to send the plane used for it to the scrap yard.

The poor plane headed for an early retirement is a Boeing 747-400 named The Bay of Islands, and has been flying for almost twenty years. After the fancy fuel test last December, the bird sat unused and unloved while looking for a new buyer, but there were unfortunately no takers. In this economy, when it’s hard enough to fill up the average flight with passengers, it’s even harder to fill a jumbo jet.

This 747 started its life flying for Cathay Pacific after being leased from Air New Zealand, but now it will take one last flight towards its final destination. An official resting place hasn't been finalized, as a couple parties are still working out the details regarding who will disassemble it. The dismantling company will sell off all the good parts like the electronic components, and most of the body will be recycled. Too bad, we'll just have to stick to buying carbon offsets for now.

Related Stories:
·First 747-400 Heads For Wrecker [Stuff.co.nz]
·A New Paint Job for Air New Zealand...Body Paint [Jaunted]
·Airline News coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo of Another 747: Eduardo O.]