Pacific Blue Airlines

PM could be one of many affected by ash cloud

The Prime Minister's travel plans could be one of the thousands to be affected by the volcanic ash cloud this weekend.

John Key is due to fly out to India on Sunday but airforce staff have reportedly told media travelling with him to prepare for a departure on Saturday evening to try and get around the ash.

Jetstar and Qantas have cancelled domestic and trans-Tasman flights tomorrow due to the return of the cloud from the eruption of the Mt Puyehue Cordon Caulle volcano.

Peter Lechner from the Civil Aviation Authority said the base of cloud remains between 18,000 and 20,000 feet, and while it is beginning to extend out into the Pacific it will remain over the country for the weekend.

He said it could hover over the country until late on Sunday and it will be up to airlines to decide whether to fly or not.

Pacific Blue cancelled its trans-Tasman flights today, but Air New Zealand domestic and international flights are operating as normal. The airline says

Fyfe says Joyce has sent an email to his frequent flyer customers, claiming Air New Zealand had six ash damaged aircraft and one grounded in Australia.

Fyfe has dismissed those claims as malicious rumours.

He said the ash clouds could return on and off for months to come and the airline will continue to take a similar approach.

I was supposed to come back to Auckland on 16 of June much before my Returning Visa expiration date 23-Jun. Unfortunately Qantas cancelled every single fly to NZ, so after spending a week in Santiago de Chile I couldn't fly to Auckland and I have lost my resident visa. What can I do now I cannot reurn back to NZ?

Airlines: VirginAmerica/Atlantic/Blue/Pacific Blue « Travels at 88mph

Used: 2002, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010

Virgin Airlines in its many forms. I have flown with three of their services. The first was with VirginAtlantic back in 2002, during my first trip to London. A friend of mine suggested them and told me they were awesome, so when it came to book my flight and they were on par with being as cheap as any airline, I picked them. Yeah, kind of a disappointment. The seats were super tiny and on my flight from LAX to LHR, none of the entertainment consoles worked. Granted it was the overnight flight and you were supposed to sleep anyway, but a total dissapointment! Luckily, they worked on the way back. Good things: I liked the little bag of goodies you got when you got to your seat. I loved the pen that came in the bag and used it for years. I just liked the way it wrote. Also, I did like the funkyness of it all, but would have gladly changed to blah to get the entertainment working. That was the biggest disappointment. Otherwise, don’t really remember much else about them. Haven’t flown with them since.

Funny enough, I totally forgot about flying on Pacific Blue until this week when I was reading about the change in name to Virgin Australia (from Virgin Blue, see below) to include Virgin’s services in the pacific, outside of Australia. This service started within New Zealand in 2007, when I was living in Auckland, and to promote the new services, the fares were dirt cheap, so I bought some for my family when they came and we had to fly from AKL to CHC. 4 one-way tickets for US$114! But you pay for what you get. They only flew back and forth from AKL, WLG and CHC on various routes a few times a day. It seemed they only had a two or three planes that flew back and forth, granted distances aren’t very far and you can get from AKL to CHC and back in less then 4 hours. But if one flight was delayed, the whole schedule for the day was thrown off. I booked the last flight of the day from AKL to CHC, just in case of any delay and by the time we left AKL, we were about 4 hours delayed and finally left AKL about an hour after we were supposed to land in CHC. It sucked, but it was supposed to be a rest day anyway. So we ended up “resting” in the airport instead of the hotel. Oh well. I was just looking at the PacBlue website and it appears that they do not fly within NZ anymore, just from NZ over to Australia. So I guess those routes didn’t last long the way they were booking them. Oy.

Pacific Blue Airlines

Airlines of Oceani, Airlines of American Samoa, Airlines of Australia, Airlines of Fiji, Airlines of French Polynesia, Airlines of Guam

Frommer's Australia 2011

Occasional papers of the California Academy of Sciences

Samoan Islands & Tonga