New Zealand express flights
 

I witnessed an unusual (to me) sighting over Sydney last Friday night.

At dusk, I noticed a flight high over Sydney heading for New Zealand.

It looked a sight with sunlight glistening off it and a large vapour trail behind.

Not overly unusual in itself, however it hadn't yet disappeared into the east when two more showed up doing exactly the same thing on identical paths. They were even almost side by side, complete with sunlight and vapour trails.

After a bit of research, it turns out the first aircraft was a Singapore 777, and the other two were an Air Asia flight and a Malysian 777.

Is this a common occurrence?

The Singapore 777 (flight 281 to AKL) can be seen around 7pm every night on a sunny evening and I am pretty sure the Air Asia A333 is heading to Christchurch. Not sure where for the Malaysian.

The Malaysian 777 was operating MH133 KUL-AKL according to 16Right ACARS (http://www.16right.com/).

From www.16Right.com ACARS ...

9V-SRN SQ0281 11/11/2011 19:18 Singapore Airlines B777-212(ER) Singapore-Auckland
9M-MRQ MH0133 11/11/2011 19:24 Malaysian Airlines B777-2H6(ER) Kuala Lumpur-Auckland

Out of curiousity, why did the Air Asia flight not show up on ACARS?