News
Air New Zealand takes delivery of premium-heavy B787s
October 13th 2017
Strong performer, Air New Zealand (Air NZ), on Sunday took delivery of the first of four additional B787-9s on order, following a ferry flight from North Charleston, South Carolina. Read More » Another -9 will be delivered to the Star Alliance member in November. The remaining two will follow in 2018.
Air NZ’s latest Dreamliners will be configured “premium heavy”. Compared with the other nine -9s in its fleet, the four new arrivals will be equipped with nine additional business and twelve extra premium economy class seats for a total of 275 seats, 27 fewer than on the carrier’s original Dreamliner fleet.
Air NZ continues to defy the industry’s recent volatile history. The Auckland-headquartered airline this Wednesday said it would upgrade the Houston route from five a week to six-weekly and then daily from March 25. The decision will put 32,000 more seats a year on the route.
Air NZ will replace the B777-200ER now flying to Houston route with the premium-heavy B787s from December. Until then, the new configuration Dreamliners will be rostered on the carrier’s bread-and-butter Auckland-Sydney shuttle.
“As a strategic gateway into America’s South, Houston is unlocking huge demand for travel to New Zealand from across the South, Mid-west and Mid-Atlantic regions, with annual visitor arrivals up 21% from Texas and 25% from New York,” said Air NZ CFO, Cam Wallace. “As a transit hub, Houston also offers Kiwi travellers better onward connections to popular East Coast destinations like New York, Boston and Miami.” Air NZ now has 10 B787-9s, eight B777-200ERs, seven -300ERs and 30 A320s.
The airline is trialling Inmarsat’s GX on-board WiFi on the -300ER fleet. It intends to have WiFi on all -300ERs by June and will start retrofitting the -200ERs from April.
