040
Photo taken by: Mike Halpenny
Route: Singapore - Auckland, 4 Oct 2003
Ticket price: $1099 (nz$)
Flight duration: 10hrs
Aircraft type & class: 767-300 Economy
Business or leisure trip: Leisure
Meal type: Dinner
Contents of the meal: Orange juice, fresh fruit, yogurt, Asian breakfast chicken noodles casserole, roll and jam
Drink: Juice, jasmine tea, Tea or coffee
Comments: Strange meal for breakfast chicken casserole. Partner cannot eat eggs so no other choice. While it looks like the contents of an airsick bag I am told it tastes ok
Rating 1-10 (worst-best):2, Presentation is abysmal even if taste was ok!

039
Photo taken by: Mike Halpenny
Route: Singapore - Auckland, 4 Oct 2003
Ticket price: $1099 (nz$)
Flight duration: 10hrs
Aircraft type & class: 767-300 Economy
Business or leisure trip: Leisure
Meal type: Breakfast
Contents of the meal: Fresh fruit, yogurt, orange juice, Omelet with tomato sauce, chicken sausage, hash brown, roll and jam
Drink: Jasmine tea, juice, tea or coffee
Comments: Another airline breakfast standard re-heat omelet. Sauce was as bad as it looks! Soggy hash brown! And why a chicken sausage!!
Rating 1-10 (worst-best):3 the fruit and the yogurt scores the points

038
Photo taken by: Mike Halpenny
Route: Singapore - Auckland, 4 Oct 2003
Ticket price: $1099 (nz$)
Flight duration: 10hrs
Aircraft type & class: 767-300 Economy
Business or leisure trip: Leisure
Meal type: Dinner
Contents of the meal: Roll, Green salad, Roast Chicken, roast potatoes, beans and cauliflower, Caramel cake, cheese and biscuits
Drink: Beer/spirits/wine, jasmine tea, Tea or coffee
Comments: Another roast chicken meal, must be a fav of airlines, easy to re-heat!
Rating 1-10 (worst-best):8 tasted really yum and lots of nice wine. Nice touch the jasmine tea

037
Photo taken by: Mike Halpenny
Route: Auckland - Singapore, 20 Sep 2003
Ticket price: $1099 (nz$)
Flight duration: 10hrs 30 minutes
Aircraft type & class: 767-300 Economy
Business or leisure trip?: Leisure
Meal type: Dinner
Contents of the meal: Roll, fresh fruit, Roast Chicken breast, roast potatoes, pumpkin and peas, Orange cake, cheese and biscuits
Drink: Beer/spirits/wine, jasmine tea, Tea or coffee (Had already drunk the whiskey and ice!)
Comments: Served first to ensure choice.(didn’t fancy vegetarian noodles)
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 9 Yummy!!

036
Photo taken by: Mike Halpenny
Route: Auckland - Singapore, 20 Sep 2003
Ticket price: $1099 (nz$)
Flight duration: 10hrs 30 minutes
Aircraft type & class: 767-300 Economy
Business or leisure trip?: Leisure
Meal type: Lunch
Contents of the meal: Roll, Green salad, Vegetable Curry with rice and dhal, Coconut cake,cheese and biscuits
Drink: Beer/spirits/wine, jasmine tea, Tea or coffee
Comments: seating down back of plane this was only choice available by time we were served. Partner was not impressed with contents. Must admit I had reservations but tasted really nice
Rating 1-10 (worst-best):8 (only because no other choice)

035
Photo taken by: Chas. M. Chan, Certified Lifestyle Consultant
Flying from Los Angeles to Auckland, 1 Aug 2003
Ticket price: $906 r/t
Flight duration: 13 hours
Aircraft type & Class: Boeing 747-400 Economy
Meal type: Dinner served immediately after 15:30 lift off - Tasted like chicken
Drink: Steinlager and Export Gold happy hour, shiraz wine with dinner, long black or flat white coffees (most of which splashed out due to turbulence)
Comments: Served another dinner before 22:45 landing across the international date line
Rating: 5 (that's FLASH)

033-034
Photo taken by: Cab
Flying from: Melbourne to Auckland, 27 August 2003
Ticket price: NZD 585 return + NZD 100 for changing my flight + 10,000
points (they screwed up my upgrade, therefore no upgrade but charged
me for it anyway)
Flight duration: 3 hours 30 mins
Aircraft type & class: 767-300 Pacific Class (Economy)
Meal type: Dinner
Drinks (served takeoff + 35mins)
Meal (served takeoff + 1hour)
Hot crumbed beef medallion steak with cold risotto, raisin and bacon bits on green salad. Beans, peppers & tomato. Bun with butter. Arnotts crackers with Kapaiti Egmont cheese.
Dessert (served takeoff + 1hour 25 mins)
Tub of Kapiti ice-cream - honey & kiwi.
Sweets/candy (not pictured)
Drink: Single serving Jacob's Creek Shiraz Cabernet & Light Beer. Coffee & tea also offered after the meal but I drank neither. Wine glass being real glass not plastic (+ 1 point)
Comments: Bread was served warm !!! (+1 point). Cheese was semi-premium Kapiti Egmont which was good. Dessert was premium Kapiti ice-cream my favourite (+1 point) but the steak knife was plastic (-1 point). The steak was a little tough and my plastic knife snapped trying to cut it, but again thumbs up for the effort in providing for a steak meal in economy (+1 point). I hate pork but managed to separate the bacon bits from my meal with little difficulty. As you can see the presentation is excellent for economy class and not too far off from some US and European business class meals of similar flight duration.
The other main meal choice was: Chicken thigh.
With so little time between my transfer from our Melbourne office to the airport to catch the evening flight and with no decent restaurants other than cold snack bars on the airside of Melbourne International Airport. The only meal available is on the plane and that flight does not get into Auckland until midnight.
From 29 Oct. (about 2 months away) Air New Zealand will re-brand all flights between Australia & New Zealand, "Tasman Express" to re-align budget fares with their rationalisation program. I despaired when I hear the Air NZ CEO use words like "contemporary cafe style" to describe their new menu. This fancy word can only transalate as no more hot food or less food. I can imagine they will replace what you are seeing here now with something like British Airways' "All Day Deli".
This is probably one of the very last few decent trans-tasman Air NZ economy meals you'll see. Then come 29 Oct this will belong to the "Oldies" category.
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 8.5 amongst other economy class I have flown.

029-030-031-032
Photo taken by: Cab
Flying from: Auckland to Melbourne , date (24/08/2003):
Ticket price: NZD 585 + 10000 points
Flight duration: 3 hours 50 mins
Aircraft type & class: 767-300 Business
Meal type: Dinner
   Snack (served takeoff + 35mins)
   Cassava Crunch & drink
   Appetiser (served takeoff + 50 mins)
   Hot smoked king salmon with salad greens, gingered pineapple and wasabi vinaigrette
   Main Course (served takeoff + 1hr 50 mins)
   Pan seared beef fillet steak with cabernet sauce, chicken brandy mouse, shallots, green beans and rosemary potatoes.
   Dessert (served takeoff + 2hrs 10 mins)
   Vanilla king & espresso coffee ice cream with dark chocolate sauce
   Chocolate mint (not pictured)
Drink: Jacob's Creek Reserve Shiraz (with main meal), Nobilo Icon Sauvignon Blanc (with appetiser) & Light Beer. Sparkling wine pre-flight drink (not pictured). Coffee & tea also offered after the meal but I drank neither.
Comments: The appetiser could have been a little more generous with the greens. The wasabi vinaigrette was very good. I like my salmon raw but the smoked was fine. Garlic bread survived surprisingly well for the low humidity of the cabin. Cheese bowl had 2 cheeses, dried fruit and a walnut which was quite good. The main was served an hour later because the flight attendant had forgotten about me and the pax next to me. It wasn't until they collected everyone elses tray that they realised we had not been served. Initially I thought they were punishing me for boarding the aircraft late which was not all my fault as my boarding pass had gate 10 printed on it where I waited whilst everyone else was boarding at gate 3. But I was not the last. I got 2 helpings of dessert (+1 point) but the steak knife was plastic (-1 point). The steak was well done, medium would have been better, but thumbs up for the effort in providing for a steak meal. The other 2 main meal choices were:
Pumpkin ravioli and king prawns served with tomato, basil cream sauce & zucchini.
or
Smoked chicken Caesar Salad with parmesan, proscuitto and croutons. Caesar dressing.
Upgrade did not include use of their lounges or business class check-in desk (which I thought was very poor).
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 7 amongst other business class I have flown.

027-028
Photo taken by: Rupert Applin
Flying from: SIN to AKL, 17 August 2003
Ticket price: NZ$2500
Flight duration: 9hrs 30mins
Aircraft type & class: Boeing 767-300ER
Meal type: Dinner - Indonesian vegetable salad with spicy peanut dressing and Grilled beef fillet steak with beef pan jus, baby vegetables and parsley gnocchi. garlic bread also
Drink: Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc
Comments: Pretty good, the salad was interesting, but a little bland. The steak was probably more well done than rare, but still very moist and tender. The gnocchi was good - apart from some at the edges which had dried out.
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 8/10

026
Photo taken by: Pat Näser
Flying from: Auckland to Sydney, 18 February 2003
Flight duration: 03:20
Aircraft type & class: B 747-400
Meal type: Breakfast - Fresh Fruits, Cereal, Croissants
Drink: Coffee
Comments: very fresh!!!
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 10

025
Photo taken by: Pat Näser
Flying from: Honolulu to Auckland, 12 February 2003
Flight duration: 09:10
Aircraft type & class: B 767-300 - Business Class
Meal type: Breakfast - Fresh Fruits, Cereal, Croissants
Drink: Tea
Comments: very fresh!!!
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 10

024
Photo taken by: Mike
Flying from: MEL to AKL, 2 March 2003
Flight duration: 3.5 hours
Aircraft type & class: 747 400 Business
Meal type: Lunch - From the menu:
1 (021): Bloody Mary
2 (022): Appetiser - Spicy Thai Chicken salad with Szechuan pickled cucumbers and a ginger, coriander and lime dressing plus piece of Brie and a piece of cheddar with crackers
3 (023): Main - Chargrilled Beef Fillet Steak with cafe de Paris butter, fondant potatoes, spinach and slow-roasted tomatoes
4 (024): Dessert - Milk Chocolate and White Chocolate with Macadamia ice cream with a light custard sauce
Drink: Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot
Comments: "Very enjoyable meal, chicken slightly tough, but the beef was very tender, both ice cream and cheeses were stunning'
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 9.5 let down slightly by the chicken but the service was impeccable despite the fact that there was an aircraft change at short notice and my seat was moved three times before take off

023
Photo taken by: Mike
Flying from: MEL to AKL, 2 March 2003
Flight duration: 3.5 hours
Aircraft type & class: 747 400 Business
Meal type: Lunch - From the menu:
1 (021): Bloody Mary
2 (022): Appetiser - Spicy Thai Chicken salad with Szechuan pickled cucumbers and a ginger, coriander and lime dressing plus piece of Brie and a piece of cheddar with crackers
3 (023): Main - Chargrilled Beef Fillet Steak with cafe de Paris butter, fondant potatoes, spinach and slow-roasted tomatoes
4 (024): Dessert - Milk Chocolate and White Chocolate with Macadamia ice cream with a light custard sauce
Drink: Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot
Comments: "Very enjoyable meal, chicken slightly tough, but the beef was very tender, both ice cream and cheeses were stunning'
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 9.5 let down slightly by the chicken but the service was impeccable despite the fact that there was an aircraft change at short notice and my seat was moved three times before take off

022
Photo taken by: Mike
Flying from: MEL to AKL, 2 March 2003
Flight duration: 3.5 hours
Aircraft type & class: 747 400 Business
Meal type: Lunch - From the menu:
1 (021): Bloody Mary
2 (022): Appetiser - Spicy Thai Chicken salad with Szechuan pickled cucumbers and a ginger, coriander and lime dressing plus piece of Brie and a piece of cheddar with crackers
3 (023): Main - Chargrilled Beef Fillet Steak with cafe de Paris butter, fondant potatoes, spinach and slow-roasted tomatoes
4 (024): Dessert - Milk Chocolate and White Chocolate with Macadamia ice cream with a light custard sauce
Drink: Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot
Comments: "Very enjoyable meal, chicken slightly tough, but the beef was very tender, both ice cream and cheeses were stunning'
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 9.5 let down slightly by the chicken but the service was impeccable despite the fact that there was an aircraft change at short notice and my seat was moved three times before take off

021
Photo taken by: Mike
Flying from: MEL to AKL, 2 March 2003
Flight duration: 3.5 hours
Aircraft type & class: 747 400 Business
Meal type: Lunch - From the menu:
1 (021): Bloody Mary
2 (022): Appetiser - Spicy Thai Chicken salad with Szechuan pickled cucumbers and a ginger, coriander and lime dressing plus piece of Brie and a piece of cheddar with crackers
3 (023): Main - Chargrilled Beef Fillet Steak with cafe de Paris butter, fondant potatoes, spinach and slow-roasted tomatoes
4 (024): Dessert - Milk Chocolate and White Chocolate with Macadamia ice cream with a light custard sauce
Drink: Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot
Comments: "Very enjoyable meal, chicken slightly tough, but the beef was very tender, both ice cream and cheeses were stunning'
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 9.5 let down slightly by the chicken but the service was impeccable despite the fact that there was an aircraft change at short notice and my seat was moved three times before take off