Fly Melbourne-Auckland in a Cathay First Class Seat

Cathay Pacific Boeing 777 First Class
Lucky Air New Zealand Business Premier customers will soon be able to upgrade to a Cathay Pacific First Class seat. Photo: Cathay Pacific.

Update: From October 2024, a second ex-Cathay aircraft with the same configuration will also enter the Air New Zealand fleet. The second aircraft will primarily be used on the Auckland-Houston route.


Cathay Pacific no longer offers First Class on its services between Australia and Hong Kong. But from next month, there will be an unusual way to fly from Melbourne to Auckland in a Cathay Pacific First Class seat – without paying First Class prices!

Air New Zealand to lease a Cathay Pacific Boeing 777

With strong demand and multiple jets impacted by the recent Pratt & Whitney engine issues, Air New Zealand needs more planes.

After almost a year of using a leased Wamos Air plane for its Auckland-Perth service, Air New Zealand will also resume operating its own 787s to Perth from the end of this month. That will only put more pressure on the airline’s fleet.

Meanwhile, its partner Cathay Pacific has a surplus of wide-body aircraft. So, for the next three years, Air New Zealand will dry lease a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft from Cathay Pacific. The aircraft will be re-registered in New Zealand as ZK-OKU and was previously in service for Cathay Pacific as B-KPJ.

This is similar to what Qantas is doing with Finnair, except that Air New Zealand cabin crew and pilots will operate the leased Cathay Pacific aircraft. The cabin exterior will be lightly painted to remove the Cathay Pacific branding, but only minimal Air New Zealand branding will be added.

Air New Zealand won’t modify the cabin interior, other than to make small branding changes. Air New Zealand’s usual in-flight entertainment content is likely to be available.

This means Air NZ passengers will enjoy the same seating usually found on Cathay Pacific flights.

Cathay Pacific Boeing 777 Premium Economy seats
Cathay Pacific Boeing 777 Premium Economy seats. Photo: Cathay Pacific.

The Kiwi national carrier has dry leased aircraft before, including a Boeing 777 from EVA Air.

Over recent years, Cathay Pacific has also been leasing aircraft to Qatar Airways.

The Cathay Pacific 777 will fly to Melbourne and Houston

From mid-November 2023 until late 2026, Air New Zealand will use this leased Boeing 777-300ER jet on selected flights between Melbourne-Auckland and Houston-Auckland. It could also pop up from time to time on other Air New Zealand routes.

In addition, the aircraft will operate three return Auckland-Sydney trips on 20, 21 and 23 November 2023.

You can tell whether you’re booking a flight on the leased Cathay Pacific aircraft as the Air New Zealand website shows different image descriptions for this aircraft. For example, a photo of the Cathay Pacific Business Class seat is shown when booking a Business Premier fare:

NZ124 Business Class booking on the Air New Zealand website
The Air New Zealand website shows a photo of a Cathay Pacific Business seat at the booking stage.

Air NZ is selling the First Class seats as “Business Premier Preferred”

Air New Zealand doesn’t offer First Class service. However, it is making the First Class seats on this particular plane available to Business Premier customers as “Business Premier Preferred” seats. These can be selected for a surcharge of AUD150 on trans-Tasman flights or NZD590 (~AU$550) on the Auckland-Houston route.

Air New Zealand website showing Business Premier Preferred seats available for selection
Air New Zealand is selling the First Class seats as “preferred seats” to Business passengers for a surcharge.

Passengers seated in Business Premier Preferred seats will still receive Air New Zealand’s usual Business Class service. However, the seat is a lot more spacious and comes with a personal closet, as well as an in-seat massage function. It also offers a greater level of privacy.

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.
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Air New Zealand is adding a dry-leased Cathay Pacific 777-300ER to its fleet from November 2023, for a fixed period of 3 years. The plane will be lightly painted to remove the CX branding and be crewed by Air New Zealand staff, but the cabin interior will be the CX interior.

This aircraft has 201 Economy seats (3-4-3 layout), 34 Premium Economy, 53 Business and 6 First seats. The First seats will be available for sale to Business Premier customers and sold via seat selection for a surcharge as "Business Premier Preferred" seats for an extra $150. Obviously there's no Skycouch.

View attachment 350602

This is the seat map for the aircraft that is being used:

The aircraft will be mainly used on the MEL-AKL and IAH-AKL routes.

At first I thought that this aircraft might have been destined for the Per/Akl run as Air NZ have been wet leasing a Wamos Air A330 for months to cover this route.

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Shame CX demand must be so poor it has to lease its planes for 3 years!

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Air New Zealand is adding a dry-leased Cathay Pacific 777-300ER to its fleet from November 2023, for a fixed period of 3 years.

The aircraft is not being dry-leased from Cathay, CX removed the aircraft (due to be registered as Air NZ aircraft ZK-OKU but formally HK registered B-KPJ). Even then it was not a CX owned aircraft but instead owned by Air Lease Corporation (ALC), CX returned it to lessor and Air New Zealand are leasing it from ALC.

The plane will be lightly painted to remove the CX branding and be crewed by Air New Zealand staff, but the cabin interior will be the CX interior.

The 777 they are getting was already repainted white back in May 2022, meaning all external CX branding was removed well over a year ago.

There are scheduled to be a few runs to Sydney including 20,21 and 23 November, then from mid to late November it's only scheduled to operated on the MEL or IAH flights but will appear across the network as required.

Whilst Air NZ has been able to update the IFE with their own content, like when the dry-leased the EVA 777 a few years back, it won't have the full buy on board option. The lack of ordering through the screen means everyone in economy gets a full drinks selection and free snacks, with those who've ordered a meal product also getting a meal. Also non existent is WiFi, which despite the 777 being fitted with it because it's a Panasonic system and Air NZ doesn't have a contract with them for WiFi there won't be any free WiFi onboard.

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Woah nice first class when flying back home to NZ from time to time sounds excellent.

Presume the only way to know which days these are on will be the display showing preferred seating available? Any idea of the schedule at the moment?

Having a play around, found some at $105NZD additional so perhaps the price differs depending on which day etc.

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I would have paid extra for CX's catering standard.

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Shame CX demand must be so poor it has to lease its planes for 3 years!

Agreed. They've got from 10+ weekly between PER and HKG to not even daily now. Such a PITA when looking to travel for business :(

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NZ deploying this on other routes:

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Noel Phillips just did a video on it so this is now probably going to receive a lot more attention.

Interesting bit fixing the seat by flicking the switch on and off.

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