Noumea. Flying Qantas and Aircalin in J.

[gibboflyer]

Here’s one I prepared earlier… View from QF737 Seat 1A.

View attachment 286134

Beautiful!

 

[Austman]

My plans worked out fairly well.

A check-out at the Hilton just after noon. Followed by “brunch” using my last Diamond breakfast voucher.

I might have to sit on the naughty step for a while because I sneaked in the remains of last night’s wine bottle. It was cunningly disguised so no one suspected a thing. I think …



The Hilton brunch is really their breakfast plus a few more hot dishes. This was veal and ratatouille and rice. Actually pretty nice. And made a nice lunch with a glass of grape juice.

The shuttle arrived right on time. A big bus this time:



It took about 1 hour and 10 mins to get to the airport after a few more pickups.

The airport formalities were quick. QF90 is the only
flight at this time.

The Hibiscus lounge is simple but nice. Not much to eat but there are drinks:



And the incoming flight arrived on time:



You can perhaps see, the weather has not improved!

 

[Austman]

Now for the flight proper.

There were no pre-departure drinks of any kind.

The seatbelt light went off, *And Just Like That*, I was offered this beverage:



What the?? Actually it wasn’t bad!

The meal was a choice of pork or lasagne.

Since when have Qantas ever offered lasagne in J class, I wondered…

So I chose the pork:



That was with a switch to one of the reds:



Trying to compete with SYD, I took a photo of the reef, from seat 1A, just after take-off:



Coral bleaching?

The best I got in the rainy weather was:




Now a call out to the Qantas crew. This was the crew you want to get. Qantas crew at its best. They were great.

 

[Austman]

Flight 4. BNE-MEL. QF639.

Boarding soon. A few of us from Noumea will be on-board.

It’s almost deathly quiet in the Qantas BNE business lounge.

They just announced that when QF639 boards, the lounge will close and all Jetstar passengers are “invited” to go to their gate…

 

[Austman]

On board there’s no pre-departure drinks.

Crew and service are very nice.

A pre-meal beverage offer:



And the meal choices were roast chicken or a salad (I’ve forgotten which type).

I went for the chicken:

 

[Austman]

And that's the end of my TR.

All four flights operated on-time or close to it (the MEL-SYD flight moved from 10am to 9am). Some were even early!

All four crews were excellent. The A330, whether QF or SB is a much better aircraft in J than the 737.

I stayed at the Ramada (one night), the Hilton (six nights) and the DoubleTree (one night). The Ramada was nothing great but the other two were pretty good. The Hilton is actually the "Hilton Noumea La Promenade Residences" with the Promenade being a key. There's really lovely beach front walking in the whole area.

The biggest surprise for me was New Caledonia itself. While I only went to Noumea, I expected it to be like the cities of Fiji (I've been over a dozen times), Vanuatu or Samoa.

Sorry cities of Fiji, Vanuatu and Samoa, but the main city of New Caledonia - Noumea - as far as infrastructure, facilities and beauty is concerned beats you all hands down. Apart from its gritty CBD, Noumea is drop dead gorgeous.

It has good hotels, good beaches, good restaurants, good roads, good shops, good public transport, friendly people and good service. There's a lot to like.

It can be expensive in the restaurants and shops. But standards are pretty high and there's no tipping in the restaurants. The weather in July was great and I suspect it will be in August too. I had many fine days of 23 or 24 degrees that did not feel at all humid. The nights were actually pretty cool still.

So for me, Noumea gets a big thumbs up!






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[Longtoo]

Hi Austman,
Thanks for your detailed TR, very informative. I look forward to seeing Noumea myself soon.

 

[Austman]

Hi Austman,
Thanks for your detailed TR, very informative. I look forward to seeing Noumea myself soon.

I hope the weather is nice! It makes quite the difference. Not counting my two travel days, I had only only one wet day. But boy was it wet!

 

[drron]

Thanks for that TR.We will probably use Noumea as one of our Christmas escapes now.

 

[VPS]

Thanks for taking the time to do your TR as it's always been on the list of places I'd like to visit. Very interesting

 

[SYD]

Just rebooked in the current J sale. Had to pay a tad extra for the SB codeshare - mainly to avoid the OMG it’s early departure for QF91 but also to get some decent QF F lounge time! Happy to do the QF return to save $250 each.

@Austman please refresh my memory on seat selection on the SB flight. Is it one of those codeshares where QF only gets a section or should we be able to select any available seat?

 

[Austman]

@Austman please refresh my memory on seat selection on the SB flight. Is it one of those codeshares where QF only gets a section or should we be able to select any available seat?

I should have mentioned that.

I made my booking on qantas.com so the SB (Aircalin) flight was actually sold with a QF flight number. It seems that QF gets accesses to only some of the J-class cabin and I assume it's the same for Y. I don't think QF even sold the premium economy seats?

For SB's A330-900neo, on qantas.com, I could only select some of the centre DE and the right hand side H seats. The rest were shown as unavailable. I managed to figure out SB's separate PNR by entering the ticket number on Aircalin's website but couldn't change seat selection there.

Come check-in time, the whole J cabin was possible to select online at qantas.com (or the app) unless occupied. So I moved from 3H to 2A. Later, I moved again to 2H, which had become available, thinking it might get annoying around sunset on the A side. Landing in NOU after 6pm is dark at the moment.

 

[SYD]

I should have mentioned that.

I made my booking on qantas.com so the SB (Aircalin) flight was actually sold with a QF flight number. It seems that QF gets accesses to only some of the J-class cabin and I assume it's the same for Y. I don't think QF even sold the premium economy seats?

For SB's A330-900neo, on qantas.com, I could only select some of the centre DE and the right hand side H seats. The rest were shown as unavailable. I managed to figure out SB's separate PNR by entering the ticket number on Aircalin's website but couldn't change seat selection there.

Come check-in time, the whole J cabin was possible to select online at qantas.com (or the app) unless occupied. So I moved from 3H to 2A. Later, I moved again to 2H thinking it might get annoying around sunset on the A side. Landing in NOU after 6pm is dark at the moment.

and to make matters worse SB seating isn’t loaded into EF, so difficult to check what’s available.

I was just looking at EF and a QF92 seat map and only 1A/C, 2D/F and from memory all four seats in row 3 were showing (which means the others are reserved for the SB codeshare).

 

[Austman]

and to make matters worse SB seating isn’t loaded into EF, so difficult to check what’s available.

I was just looking at EF and a QF92 seat map and only 1A/C, 2D/F and from memory all four seats in row 3 were showing (which means the others are reserved for the SB codeshare).

Yes that might have been the case for me too on the QF90 737. I did have the seatmap at booking time but I've deleted it. I think I did get to choose 1A at the time of booking with 1C also empty. Or that might have been at T-80?

But when online check-in opened, I could see the whole J cabin.

 

[Brissy1]

If this place gets any more beautiful, I think I might scream. Haha.



View attachment 285940

And be very specific with model choice when making Avis car bookings:

View attachment 285941

Thanks for your trip report Austman, I was previously feeling a bit oh hum about my pending trip but now quite looking forward to it. Would love to hire that avis tuktuk but I suppose that's just a promotional thing. Can't book any avis vehicle online, strange, I prefer avis as I've never,ever, had any issues with them.
How did you book your hire car?

 

[SYD]

Thanks for your trip report Austman, I was previously feeling a bit oh hum about my pending trip but now quite looking forward to it. Would love to hire that avis tuktuk but I suppose that's just a promotional thing. Can't book any avis vehicle online, strange, I prefer avis as I've never,ever, had any issues with them.
How did you book your hire car?

Precovid, I was able to book a car online from an AVIS downtown office and drop-off at the airport. It’s telling me “No cars available” for the period I’ve booked and that might just we’ll be the problem. No cars left!

I had a similar problem in France a couple of years ago. Small provincial office just said ”Non” months and months out. It might pay to call.

 

[Brissy1]

Precovid, I was able to book a car online from an AVIS downtown office and drop-off at the airport. It’s telling me “No cars available” for the period I’ve booked and that might just we’ll be the problem. No cars left!

I had a similar problem in France a couple of years ago. Small provincial office just said ”Non” months and months out. It might pay to call.

Thanks.After getting the "no cars available" I did try many other dates including next year as a test and always got the same message. Looks like a ph call needed unfortunately, pickup from the airport would be handy.

 

[SYD]

Thanks.After getting the "no cars available" I did try many other dates including next year as a test and always got the same message. Looks like a ph call needed unfortunately, pickup from the airport would be handy.

How’s your French?

AVIS - Location de voiture à Nouméa en Nouvelle-Calédonie

Nous disposons d’un réseau de trois agences de location de voitures : sur Nouméa à la Baie de l’Orphelinat, à Ducos et au coeur de l’aéroport de la Tontouta

www.avis.nc

 

[Austman]

Flight 3. NOU-BNE. QF90.

Most of the flights to Australia depart NOU in the mid morning. Eg today’s flight to SYD departed at 9.00am. With the 2 hours before departure recommendation (probably not really needed) and a ca 1 hour journey to the airport, it can make for a very early hotel check-out.

But QF90, currently just 1 flight per week, has a 4:10pm departure. Far more civilised.

I think I have to correct this. More correctly it's:

Most of the QF/SB flights to Australia that have J-class, depart NOU in the mid morning (Aircalin) or just after noon (Qantas). There's no J-class on the Aircalin A320.

It's still a bit of an early start I suppose, even for the Qantas flights, if you have to leave your Noumea hotel at least 3 hours prior.

Except for QF90 to BNE on Saturdays which departs just after 4pm. Also, if then continuing from BNE to MEL, there were 20 extra QF status credits and extra QF points earned compared with going via SYD. And you avoid the INT arrivals and INT to DOM terminal transfer in SYD. BNE is probably easier.

And an update to my TR on my QF90 NOU-BNE arrival in BNE:

QF90 arrived 20mins early at 17:20! And with HLO, for me it was a (long) walk straight through and out the doors. No queues at all and no COVID anything.

I then walked down to the domestic transfers section and out the door just as a free transfers bus was arriving. Not even a minute's wait. So it wasn't too much later that I was in the Qantas BNE domestic J lounge. Before 18:30 I think.

I should have paid more attention to the departures board because after some time in the lounge there was an announcement that QF615, the 18:15 delayed departure to MEL was now boarding. It eventually departed at 19:25.

Had I paid more attention to the departures board (I just glanced a look for my QF639 flight which was second last on the list), and if there happened to be a spare J-class seat, and if I could find someone to somehow actually do it, I might have been able to move to QF615.

Anyway QF639, the last domestic QF flight out of BNE and the last domestic QF flight into MEL for that day, departed 5 mins early and arrived in MEL 5 mins early too.

 

[Austman]

How did you book your hire car?

I didn't book or use one. I stayed in Noumea and used local transport. That AVIS photo was taken in the area where I stayed, outside a car rental place.

Be aware too that it's driving on the right hand side in New Caledonia.