Air New Zealand switching to 777 ex-Perth

[oz_mark]

The ANZ/Virgin alliance is upping capacity PER - AKL, with PE/Business and all....

Air New Zealand and alliance partner Virgin Australia today announced plans to boost capacity on the busy Auckland-Perth route by more than 20% in the upcoming financial year

From 3 September, Air New Zealand will replace its 234 seat Boeing 767-300 with a 304 seat Boeing 777-200ER aircraft on its non-stop Auckland-Perth service.

The introduction of the 777-200ER on Auckland-Perth adds another 70 seats on each flight and introduces lie-flat Business Premier beds and Premium Economy to the route for the first time.

Seats added to Auckland-Perth flights | Voxy.co.nz

 

[docjames]

Great news.

Does the PER-AKL flight connect (decently) with AKL-LAX or AKL-SFO?

 

[trooper]

Not at the moment I don't think*..... maybe a schedule change too?

77's on the HNL route too.... so where are they getting the extra aircraft? (Or am I missing something...)

*EDIT: OUCH! 12-15 hour layover outbound... 8-9 hour inbound...

 

[docjames]

Thanks trooper - you'd think this would be a great option for PER residents travelling to the US (avoids SYD/BNE transfers between terminals) if the timings were better.

Presume the 763 will now be used to DPS (as recently announced AKL-DPS flights).

 

[StevePER]

Excellent - I'll be flying business class PER-AKL with NZ in September. This will make it even better.

 

[StevePER]

They have changed our seat allocations from 2J/K to 2K and 3A. Hmmm. And I can't change it online anymore (it is a bmi Diamond Club booking) so it looks like a phone call will be required. Any suggestions on the best seats for couples in their herringbone configuration?

 

[serfty]

There are not in the herringbone. I found in line works best.

I suggest 6A&7A or 6K&7K - the row seven window seats have a little more privacy.

 

[trooper]

Concur.... but no seat combination is really good for couples....

 

[wandering_fred]

Ah yes, another route that the competition thinks is profitable and useful, whereas QF does not.

Limited happy wandering

Fred

 

[StevePER]

And I can't change it online anymore (it is a bmi Diamond Club booking) so it looks like a phone call will be required. Any suggestions on the best seats for couples in their herringbone configuration?

Thanks for the seating tips. I was able to do online seat selection for the flight over after waiting a couple of days following the aircraft change. I've locked in 6K and 7K on the way over. The website defaulted to giving seats inline. Still need to ring for the return flight which was a Krisflyer redemption (so I don't have an NZ reference).

 

[anat0l]

Ah yes, another route that the competition thinks is profitable and useful, whereas QF does not.

Caveat: PER/AKL has been operating as a S2S route since the second stage of the conversion of all such NZ routes in the Trans-Tasman market. So I wouldn't start crowing hard that NZ have exactly shown that route some respect apart from a cursory option and obligation.

I personally think NZ moving to S2S on that route was a mistake. At least this move will give them some real J market. I suppose they couldn't rely on VA/DJ alone to ferry pax to the Eastern seaboard before a Trans-Tasman flight; similarly, with the possibility to allow/codeshare with VA/DJ on that direct sector, it should be easier to fill that route to better profit levels.

At least NZ can finally be more serious about their AKL-PER-JNB (with SA codeshare on the latter) route.

 

[Sprucegoose]

They have changed our seat allocations from 2J/K to 2K and 3A. Hmmm. And I can't change it online anymore (it is a bmi Diamond Club booking) so it looks like a phone call will be required. Any suggestions on the best seats for couples in their herringbone configuration?

I remember 1B was good....looked back through the windows. I hope i got the seat right.

 

[SeaWolf]

*EDIT: OUCH! 12-15 hour layover outbound... 8-9 hour inbound...

I can understand why AirNZ has the flights at these times. This way the service arrive into Auckland with a full day of connections ahead of it, and leave Auckland with an almost full day of connections behind it.
But it's still a pain and I really wish it would connect effectively to the North American services. It would be fantastic if it did.

 

[limlib]

The Perth flight does connect really well with the HNL flight from Auckland which departs in the morning. My family have used this route to HNL several times and prefer Air New Zealand to Qantas on the way to HNL.

 

[SeaWolf]

The Perth flight does connect really well with the HNL flight from Auckland which departs in the morning. My family have used this route to HNL several times and prefer Air New Zealand to Qantas on the way to HNL.

You're right, it does connect well with the HNL flight. I'll have to consider that next time I'm headed to the USA. I've never been to Hawaii, would be nice to stopover and have a look and it'd break up the journey compared to flying straight to LAX or SFO.

 

[kiwi2768]

I just booked for myself, hubby and my mum to go PER-AKL-DUD-AKL-PER in October. We were going to go PE but Mum likes Business, so she paid the difference between PE and Business for us as our birthday and Christmas presents. It was $400 p.p. more each way. I only just realised, when I was choosing our seats, that it is now Business Premier. Last time we went it was just normal Business seating. After that I will still be 90 points short of my points required to retain Virgin Gold, but hubby will go from silver to gold

 

[Sprucegoose]

I was quite surprised at the amount of kiwis in WA so I am not concerned this route or the aircraft they are using is wrongly pitched


Sent from my iPhone using Aust Freq Fly app

 

[fewings85]

good news!

i took this flight last year on the older 767. Was on my way to the US. Agree the connection to LAX isnt great if you want to get there in the shortest time. 15 hour lay over is a pain. But this time i kind of didnt mind it as i hadnt been to NZ before so i got to spend the day exploring Auckland. I dont think i would do it again but.