Air New Zealand: Encyclopedia II - Air New Zealand - Services

Air New Zealand - Services

Air New Zealand - New Longhaul Product

On the 28th of June 2004, Air New Zealand released some of the details regarding their new longhaul product which will help the airline turn around the profitability of their international services. Every seat on their Boeing 747 (and ordered Boeing 777) fleet of aircraft will be replaced with a more comfortable seat equipped with a personal LCD screen linked to an audio and video on demand system which allows passengers to play, pause, stop, rewind and forward media on demand just like they can with DVDs and CDs at home. First class will be removed, the business class cabin will be upgraded to feature seats which convert into flat beds 6' 7.5" in length and a new premium economy section are being installed.

A new generation seat design which provides even more space is being installed into Pacific (Economy) Class, Air New Zealand's main cabin. The seats have a flexible edge seat base to provide more leg support when reclined and the equipment for the entertainment systems is mounted far up below the seat to maximise space available to the passenger. In a first for Air New Zealand every seat in the main cabin will have a 8.4" personal LCD screen linked to the system described above.

Pacific Premium (Premium Economy) Class is a new concept to Air New Zealand, which will be the only airline offering the product into New Zealand. Premium Economy seats are located in a dedicated cabin which shares lavatories with the Business Class cabin. The class has the same mood lighting, wine selection and inseat power for electronic devices such as laptops' as the Business Class cabin. The seats are wider, with more legroom than Pacific Economy Class.

Air New Zealand's new Business Premier (Business) Class cabin will introduce a seat which converts to a flat bed, the only truly lie-flat bed in Business Class flying into, or out of New Zealand. The seats are configured in a herring bone layout meaning that every seat will have direct aisle access. The seat is a variation on the Virgin Atlantic Airways Upper Class seat, which were paid for the licence to these seats.

Air New Zealand’s first refurbished 747-400 aircraft, internally know as the 74R will be flying NZ7/8 services between Auckland and San Francisco from August 2005*. The second 74R will be entering commercial service on September 1 2005*. However both of these aircraft will not be equipped with the much touted mood lighting for premium classes until next year. The rest of the 747-400 fleet are to be refurbished sequentially.

As of the end of 2005 two 777-200 had been delivered. These new aircraft are used on the Auckland to San Fancisco route.

*Please note that these dates are subject to change

Air New Zealand - Subsidiaries

Air New Zealand has four wholly-owned subsidiary airlines - three fully integrated regional airlines Air Nelson, Eagle Airways and Mount Cook Airline serving secondary cities in New Zealand, and Freedom Air a low cost international carrier in the South Pacific flying between New Zealand and Eastern Australia and Fiji.

Mount Cook Airline is a regional airline based in Christchurch, New Zealand which also forms part of Air New Zealand's link network serving secondary cities in New Zealand with a fleet of 66 seater ATR 72-500 turbo-prop aircraft. Flight numbers are from the NZ5000 series.

Air Nelson is a regional airline based in Nelson, New Zealand which forms part of Air New Zealand's link network serving secondary cities in New Zealand with a fleet of Saab 340A and recently acquired Bombardier Q300 aircraft. Flight numbers are from the NZ8000 series.

Eagle Airways is a regional airline based in Hamilton, New Zealand which also forms part of Air New Zealand's link network serving secondary cities in New Zealand with a fleet of Beechcraft 1900D aircraft. Flight numbers are from the NZ2000 series.

Freedom Air is a separate low-cost international carrier in the South Pacific serving links between New Zealand and Eastern Australia and Fiji.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Services", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki