Air New Zealand has announced an exciting addition to their route network for this November. Or more accurately they’ve announced a service resumption, as they last flew here in 1998.
Air New Zealand will be launching flights between Auckland and Seoul Incheon as of November 23, 2019. The flight will operate up to 5x weekly with the following schedule:
NZ75 Auckland to Incheon departing 12:00PM arriving 7:55PM
NZ76 Incheon to Auckland departing 9:45PM arriving 12:55PM (+1 day)
I say “up to 5x weekly” because the route will operate 3x weekly year-round, and then between December 23 and February 22, the airline will operate an additional 2x weekly frequencies due to the peak season.
Air New Zealand intends to use a Boeing 787-9 for the route, featuring business, premium economy, and economy. This ~6,000 mile flight is blocked at 11hr55min northbound, and 11hr10min southbound.
The only other airline to operate this route is Korean Air, which operates the route up to daily using a Boeing 777-300ER. So it’s great to see some competition on the route.
In addition to New Zealand being a popular vacation destination for Koreans, Air New Zealand is also part of Star Alliance, so Air New Zealand will have some connectivity thanks to Asiana’s hub there.
This will represent Air New Zealand’s sixth destination in Asia, after Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Taipei, and Tokyo.
As Air New Zealand’s Chief Revenue Officer, Cam Wallace, describes it:
“Seoul is a densely populated city with more than 10 million residents. Inbound leisure travel from South Korea to New Zealand has grown significantly in recent years presenting an important tourism growth opportunity for the airline and for the New Zealand tourism economy.
We also want to encourage more Kiwi travellers to explore Seoul and South Korea. We’re thrilled to be offering customers easy direct access to another vibrant Asian destination to add to their bucket list. The new service will also help connect the estimated 40,000 Koreans already living in New Zealand more conveniently with friends and family in their home country.”
Bottom line
It’s cool to see Air New Zealand add yet another Asian destination, after only having added service to Taipei in the past few months.
This is of course great for those traveling between Asia and New Zealand, but could also prove useful for some traveling between the US and New Zealand, since with some programs you can redeem miles on a single ticket from the US to New Zealand via Incheon.
What do you make of Air New Zealand’s new route between Auckland and Incheon?
The latest schedule should be as follows:
NZ75 Auckland to Incheon departing 10:35 arriving 6:30PM
Hi regarding the last sentence in your post: "since with some programs you can redeem miles on a single ticket from the US to New Zealand via Incheon", could you please expand or list which airlines programs are the ones in which miles can be redeem to fly US to NZ via Incheon.
Is it just Cathay using Alaska miles? Can Korean be used for the second segment (ICN-AKL? And/or are there others programs?
Thank you.
AirNZ will be flying a couple of times in July to Buenos Aires with the 77W, apparently because of the World Rugby championship.
@Mike
Me too, given large # of East Asian population in AKL. It's also farther than I thought it would be at 6K miles as it's similar to distance I flew from AKL to LAX. Guess I did not realize how far away NZ is from Asia.
I'm kind of surprised this route wasn't already happening.
Even if this was a new *A route for US-NZ I don't see how this makes sense as it's such a roundabout route, geographically speaking. I see Americans flying direct to NZ if it was their original intended destination.
And Aaron got his degreee from a cornflakes box.
Tool...
This site is like Wikipedia - a good place to get information but don't expect complete accuracy or particularly good writing.
Nonetheless I think it's great. If you don't I don't know why you'd be here reading it.
@Aaron How unfortunate that you didn't proofread your comment about "bunch if typos" before you clicked POST COMMENT.
@Aaron (AKA whoever is posting as Debit)
Actually, Lucky did go to college, a fact which most long time readers of this site should already know.
lmao what the fuck is with these comments
i love you lucky dont listen to them
Pshaw. It won't help with award redemptions because Air New Zealand won't release any space.
Aaron, I have it on good authority that Lucky was born in a rhubarb patch in Gary Leff's garden. He was adopted and raised by a pack of wild german shepherds and brought to live on the grounds of AUS airport. This is how his mother tongue became german and his love of airlines began. It's true he has no formal education but his innate sense of the airline industry is quite good.
You know, Lucky's airline news kinda articles are always lacking some kind of info or facts. Or including false information and bunch if typos.
I don't think he even had proper college level education. Or any higher level education.
I do appreciate what he does, but I really think he should stick with just points and miles stuff.
They're also going to be introducing a new business class seat and will be offering free wifi on all international flights
I was under the impression that NZ also flew AKL-KIX & AKL-DPS. Am I mistaken?
In Asia, NZ also operates to KIX and DPS on a seasonal basis.