LHR - LAX - AKL on Air New Zealand.
Take off out of LHR and the crew whips through the cabin with a light snack and a drink then disappears for the next 6 hours. I have to go to the galley and get water for the nice older lady sat next to me as she has medication to take and doesn't want to disturb the crew. In the galley one very rude 'hostie' says they don't have to do water rounds and the pax are quite capable of getting to the galley themselves. Two hours out of LAX and my wife and I are wondering why no dinner service yet! Finally the trolleys come out and start making their way up the cabin. We are sat smack in the middle and are therefore the last to be served, two rows from us the pilot comes on and tells the cabin to prepare the cabin, trolleys go away and no dinner for our row! To compenstate they give us a voucher to use at LAX and they say that the ovens were turned on late which is why breakfast was late.
So burger king burger at LAX and a quick run to the aircraft as we have to go out through immigration and back through security meaning the two hour transit goes by pretty quick. Arrive in Auckland and they have lost my suitcase, we make our way across to domestic for a connecting flight to Wellington and once onboard are told that we no longer get food onboard as part of the the new 'product' means tea and coffee only along with a cookie but we do get another 'voucher' as our ticket was purchased prior to this change and we are entitled to $10 back to compensate.
So to sum it all up..... crap aircraft, crap inflight entertainment and worst of all crap service. I have never flown Air New Zealand again and will not fly them again, the middle east and asian carriers have it all over both Air NZ and Qantas and Jetstar. The whole point is that just because I have had a bad experience doesn't mean on the majority of other occasions the service provided isn't good. This reporter obviously did not find a lot wrong with the Jetstar service on that day, why is that so hard to accept. Sometimes they do run ontime, and I have even had passengers thank me for the 'great' flight.
*edited to correct for bad memory*