Booking Flights

We are booking our own flights for our cruise next year. I plan to book with Air Tahiti Nui and I noticed that they have 2 flights leaving within 15 minutes of each other on Saturday night. I'm not sure which to pick- the 11:45pm or the 11:59pm flight? Is one 'better' than the other or board more smoothly? Does one tend to run more on time than the other or have a better/newer aircraft?

My other question is about picking our seats- I have read that you can't pick your seats directly on the website when you book your flights. How does this work? The biggest reason we are flying on ATN instead of AirFrance is because we want to get one of the sets of 2 seats in the economy section. AirFrance only has 8 sets of 2 seats and they are in the way back of the plane and are on an angle so they don't line up with the seats in front of them, thus limiting your foot space. No thank you! We can't afford to pay for the premium economy or business class seats so we want to have the best economy experience we can manage (this is our honeymoon, after all!), so we definitely want one of those window/aisle seats as opposed to one of the seats in the middle section. Any suggestions on how to make that happen?? :D

One international flight will not run any better or worse than another within such a short time window. It is generally a matter of weather and equipment (maintenance.) that causes delays. Apparently they are replacing some of their equipment soon. I would personally book the newer airframe if it is an option. I don't know when you are flying.

Other considerations, give yourself a very long layover in LAX. Like 5 hours or so. That way if you have an issue with your first flight you have tons of time to recover.

Secondly, book directly through an airline, If there is an irregularity you will have better luck dealing with them than a value site.

Lastly, I reserved my seats by calling ATN after booking with AA.

One international flight will not run any better or worse than another within such a short time window. It is generally a matter of weather and equipment (maintenance.) that causes delays. Apparently they are replacing some of their equipment soon. I would personally book the newer airframe if it is an option. I don't know when you are flying.

 

Other considerations, give yourself a very long layover in LAX. Like 5 hours or so. That way if you have an issue with your first flight you have tons of time to recover.

 

Secondly, book directly through an airline, If there is an irregularity you will have better luck dealing with them than a value site.

 

Lastly, I reserved my seats by calling ATN after booking with AA.

We will be traveling next September. I'm not sure when they are rolling out the new planes but we can't change our travel dates. I'm not sure how to know what plane is scheduled for each flight since I would assume that information is not decided this far in advance (nor do I think that is information the airlines share with customers bc wouldn't everyone just book the new plane? haha)

I plan to book directly with ATN, but that's good to know that if we do book with a partner airline, ATN will still be able to assign our seats.

And yes, I do plan to have a long layover at LAX. We only need to get to San Jose, and Southwest has at least 10 flights a day that do that route, so I'm not too worried. This was actually one of the other reasons we opted for ATN over Air France- the Air France flight lands at 6:40pm so we would need to sleep in LA that night since the latest Southwest flight back to San Jose leaves at like 8pm or something that is too early for us to make the connection. At least ATN arrives in the morning so we can book a late afternoon flight back to San Jose and we can still be home in time for dinner :)

ATN has refurbished all but one of their planes. There is no way to know' if you will be on the one that has not been refurbished. Their new planes I believe at not expected until 2018.

I would check prices on AA and Qantas. They both codeshare on ATN

You are correct. I googled it. The 787 will not be in service until 18.

But for future reference if you book a flight on ATN and it is a 787 It is a new airplane.

You will not know specifically which airframe, but that will be irrelevant.

One word of warning about booking southwest. They do not have a code share with ATN. If you book southwest and a separate reservation for air Tahiti and southwest sticks you somewhere you will no show for your ATN flight and be out of luck. Whereas if you book with a codeshare partner all the way through to ppt and the flight is cancelled or delayed and you miss your ATN connection that airline will be responsible for re-accommodating you.

I would highly advise reading ATN's contract of carriage, while paying particular attention to the no show policy.

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We are booking our own flights for our cruise next year. I plan to book with Air Tahiti Nui and I noticed that they have 2 flights leaving within 15 minutes of each other on Saturday night. I'm not sure which to pick- the 11:45pm or the 11:59pm flight? Is one 'better' than the other or board more smoothly? Does one tend to run more on time than the other or have a better/newer aircraft?

 

My other question is about picking our seats- I have read that you can't pick your seats directly on the website when you book your flights. How does this work? The biggest reason we are flying on ATN instead of AirFrance is because we want to get one of the sets of 2 seats in the economy section. AirFrance only has 8 sets of 2 seats and they are in the way back of the plane and are on an angle so they don't line up with the seats in front of them, thus limiting your foot space. No thank you! We can't afford to pay for the premium economy or business class seats so we want to have the best economy experience we can manage (this is our honeymoon, after all!), so we definitely want one of those window/aisle seats as opposed to one of the seats in the middle section. Any suggestions on how to make that happen?? :D

In my experience the worst/most awful ATN flights I have been on were continuations to or from Paris. The planes are totally full and also full of arrogant/selfish people and the crew will treat you like crap if you are not French or Tahitian. I have experienced this three times and if I were you I would find out which flight is the continuation from Paris and avoid that one. I was on that flight going to PPT last year when I went and they also changed the plane and we got the one OLD one!

We just got home from an ATN flight yesterday..we were booked on the 11:59 flight..it left on time but it was the older plane ... not sure you can find out but our plane was dubbed Moorea

We had no trouble getting seat assignments and I'm sure if you book early there should be no problem getting the 2 seats on the side

We booked everything including the cruise with a wonderful independent rep who got us the cabin we wanted, the most obc and got our seat assignment on ATN within a few days of booking

Don't stress the flights on atn....it gets you there and back ...we flew Air France last time and I would book ATN again..

Also ..southwest is easy walk from the international terminal ..we gave ourselves 3 hours but we zipped thru immigrations, baggage check and customs in less than an hour ...we were back in the Bay Area before 4:30 pm.

Book now ..find a good cruise agent.

Thanks for all of your replies! AA seems to be an extra $100-$200 per person so I probably won't book with them. Qantas is about $300 per person less than ATN, so maybe I will book with Qantas if the rates stay the same once my return flight is posted in about 2 weeks.

So far, ATN only posted my outbound flight information. I am trying to figure out which plane comes from Paris to LAX and then on to PPT, so I looked up the CDG to LAX flights for earlier in the day of my LAX to PPT flight. I plan to fly out on Thursday's redeye, but there is also a mid-day flight on Thursday. That mid-day flight has the same flight number as the CDG to LAX flight (TN7) so fingers crossed that my redeye flight did not come from Paris! Another hopeful sign is that the flight from Paris lands at 2:20pm and the earlier flight to PPT takes off at 4:25pm, so it seems more likely that that is the flight to avoid. I doubt they would hold the plane from Paris until when my flight leaves at 11:40pm :)

If the flight number is any indication of where a plane is going, then I think the 11:45pm flight on Saturday night from PPT to LAX is the one that continues on to Paris as it has the same flight number as the Sunday afternoon LAX to CDG flight. But if the 11:59pm plane tends to run the older equipment, then maybe I'm better off trying the 11:45pm flight after all.

Neither of us sleep on redeye flights so we want the newer plane sans the snooty French people, if possible! haha