I searched this forum and the airlines forum and couldn't find any recent postings on this topic. It appeared that as of early 2003, Air New Zealand didn't have personal video screens on the seats in economy class. Is this still the case? We will be flying in March '05 from LA through Tahiti to Auckland and returning on a direct Auckland to LA flight. We thought of buying a portable DVD player, but the battery only works for about 2 1/2 hrs. Would I be able to recharge the battery on the plane?

Haven't flown with Air New Zealand recently, but in the past I found them to be up there with the best of the airline companies. I am sure they would have video tv screens by now, just about every major airline now has them.
Gosh, what did we do before the video screens came along? I guess we talked to our fellow passengers.

I can tell you that China Eastern doesn't have screens. I could have done with one on a recent flight Sydney-Shanghai-Beijing, when the cabin crew tried to put us all to sleep straight after lunch by lowering the blinds, presumably to discourage any annoying requests. Never mind the fact that we were facing quite a few hours of night flying later on. It was a bit like being made to have a nap in kindergarten.

I looked at the website and in ecomony movies are shown on the "main cabin screen". Business or first have the personal screens.

Argh, that's disappointing. I have AirNZ flights on hold now for next June. Is that really all the protable DVD players last?? That's surprising.

Hi there guys,

Air NZ's PTV's are being rolled out with an equipment upgrade that is commencing from May 2005 onward.

By June 2005 there is no guarantee that a PTV will be on the plane you are on, however I think the whole roll out is expected to take up to 18 months and is expected to coincide with the aquisition of new planes.

A bit slow off the mark but finally getting there.

The service level generally makes up for the lack of PTV's though. This coupled with the fact that most flights are overnight so sleeping is a major part of the flight.

Hope this helps some

Steve

Thank you all for the input!

Neil Oz: That's ridiculous. I hope they at least gave you apple juice and cookies before your nap-time.

Bummer on the lack of PTV's. I'm not a tv freak and I do like to read (and talk to my neighbors), but I've found that my flights went so much faster when I could choose from an assortment of intelligent films instead of craning my neck to suffer through the latest Will Smith vehicle. It is a long flight and I can't sleep much on planes. I may have to look more into the dvd players or get some sleeping pills.