Air New Zealand Leasing Cathay Pacific 777 (With First Class)

Easiest $590 one could ever spend...

I'm curious about how they're gonna use the (former) first class section for the AKL-MEL route. But given the length of that route, I think they might also charge an extra fee for those seats as well - I hope that they'll charge less for that route though. Asiana used to offer the first class seats to the business class passengers on board their 747-400s for Southeast Asian flights for an extra fee, roughly $100.

Funny you should ask. The MEL-AKL upgrade costs $80 (USD). Even though it's a short flight of 3.5 hours (when compared to the 18 hours to get to Australia), I thought it would be fun to try so I booked it.

I agree that's worth the upgrade! BTW, not sure if that was a dummy booking or not but I'd remove the date of departure if I were you, Lucky.

Any of these flights bookable with miles? I would expect it to be covered in the post, but it was not.

I just grabbed two of those AKL-IAH seats using an existing award ticket. I had to pay the premium. I was happy to.

Absurdly underpriced for those seats.

BTW, business class award seats on that Air NZ AKL-IAH flight have recently been available through United for 110K miles o/w. I don’t know if there’s still any availability, but probably worth checking.

Agreed. For the amount of space they occupy on the aircraft, that's a real bargain. Of course you'll still have the other business pax walking up and down to the restrooms at the front, so the feeling of exclusivity will be considerably less than when they were in Cathay service.

I flew Asiana LAX-ICN in 2014 on a 747-400 and there no F seats, only J and C.

This will be the sole aircraft in ANZ's fleet with this configuration. What happens when it's grounded for maintenance, especially unscheduled, for those who have booked the front seats?

You will be given a different business class seat, hopefully on the same flight, but possibly on a different one if necessary, and refunded the fee for the special seat.

I also just grabbed two business seats and it show I can pay to upgrade to the 1st class seats. Traveling with my 7 year old so I think I’ll skip

Cathay’s previous First Class class seats bookable for a “non-refundable” $363 USD?

Seeing $780 NZD for random Sep/Oct bookings (~$480 USD). Read somewhere there may be no WiFi (NZ does not have contract with Panasonic). Might be non-refundable. Still tempting.

$780 USD for IAH-AKL Sep/Oct.

I didn’t see a designated currency amount on their app during selection to confirm is the 780 is USD or NZD?

Just checked into AKL for my NZ 28 flight to IAH. I had booked seats 1K and 2K and paid over NZ$500 for each seat. On check-in, I noticed that we had been reassigned regular business class seats. Apparently, seat 2K was damaged, so we were reassigned. I understand that these things happen, but I’m still bummed. In any case, we will be refunded our seat fees.

The seats are refundable. I booked these seats with points about a month ago, then cancelled the tickets so I could rebook at a better price. I had to specifically request the refund, but it was provided. In any case, ANZ was unable to provide the seats on my flight as the seats were damaged (see my other post) so we were reassigned and the seat fees will be refunded again.

Shame they aren’t going to upgrade the wine selections to go with it

Im booked on seat 2k for my flight in February. I wonder if it is still damaged? Hope not 🙁

Any review on this flight? How was the experience on business or first class eat in row 1 and 2?

How was your experience in row 2?

Got into that plane today.. economy definitely worse than standard air New Zealand fleet. Bad news for us in economy.

I'd appreciate any info or images on the Premium Economy seats please?

No skycouch on these planes. Terrible news for economy passengers:(

Not a great plane, narrow seats in economy, not enough toilets for long haul.
Premium not up to other airline standards.
Look forward to newer planes doing the route to IAH. This plane not up to long haul costly flight standard.

Confirming there is no wifi on this plane. 🙁

It looks great to see
Air New Zealand has 3 Boeing 777-300ER
ZK- OKU
ZK- OKV
ZK- OKW
Here is a catch. When flying on ZK-OKU it is a all white plane. Kind off like the All Black Boeing 777-300ER (ZK-OKQ)

There is inflight wifi on the plane. All of Air New Zealand's international planes (Airbus A320neo, Airbus A321neo, B777-300ER and Boeing 787-9).

They all have inflight wifi

I flew Air New Zealand round trip on a Cathay Pacific 777 in business class to Bali. It was last minute and cost approximately $5,700 NZ. It was the worst business class experience of my life. The plane was old and tired. On my flight out, the seat and surrounding areas were filthy with dust and debris. The tv screen had multiple smudges and dirt. The charging console did not work (both ways) for my devices. The dinner was boiled chicken thigh with a few wilted leaves of lettuce and a sad tomato slice. I sat apparently behind some sort of sanitation closet which spewed chemical perfume vapors out every time door was opened.
Unfortunately allergic to dust and chemical cleaner perfumes. Miserable trip. I had to get crew to wipe down seating area once I sat but still was very dusty.
Flight back, I (and apparently a number of kids in economy) got violently ill 6 hours in.
I brought up my subpar business class experience to Air New Zealand. They seem to have investigated the possible food poisoning (they determined not their fault) but they have not apologized nor made any real attempt at explaining the reasons for my experience. There was an offer of 50 and then upped to 500 flight dollars which I found a joke. I might add that I & my kids have flown almost exclusively Air New Zealand for the 13 1/2 years living here- mostly back and forth to US and was a Koru Silver member
Until this experience left me uninterested in renewing my membership.
The 777’s Business class seat & catering was a dismal failure and if I had known, I would have just flown economy.
The crew was fantastic as always and is the best part of Air New Zealand.
I really was after acknowledgement and an apology that my experience is not the typical premium Business class experience of which every other business class experience with them has been outstanding. I did also expect an appropriate compensation as a long time loyal flyer with them.
My friend flew the same flight NZ
ti Bali the month before and had a similar experience with bit dirty seat and unappetizing meals plus console chargers not working.

Can confirm comments made on this ex-Cathay plane. Recently flew MEL-AKL in Premium Economy in seats 31A, 31C. Plane looked and felt old and tired, had not been cleaned to standards expected of Air NZ. Beware, 31A does not have a window seat. 31C does not offer a screen (it is held together by poorly wrapped red tape, and just flops down!). And NO wi-fi. Fortunately very good staff and an excellent PE meal made up some way for these deficiencies. It's unfortunate you just don't know what you're going to get when booking AirNZ these days.

This plane is old. Seats are warn out and entertainment system is substandard.
Beware there is no wifi or Bluetooth.
Very disappointed with Air Newzealand putting this garbage on the Auckland - Vancouver route