A new kind of Boeing 777 will soon join Air New Zealand’s fleet, and it’s one that passengers should look forward to…
In this post:
Air New Zealand picks up former Cathay Pacific 777
Air New Zealand’s long haul fleet currently consists of Boeing 777s and 787s. Since New Zealand has reopened its borders, there has been a lot of demand for travel to the country, and the airline hasn’t had enough planes to meet this demand.
Air New Zealand will shortly have an additional Boeing 777 join its fleet, which is being leased from Air Lease Corporation for a period of three years. Specifically, Air New Zealand will start flying a 14-year-old Boeing 777-300ER with the registration code ZK-OKU, which previously flew for Cathay Pacific.
Since this aircraft is no longer operated or leased by Cathay Pacific, you can expect that this will be a dry lease, meaning that it will be Air New Zealand crews operating these flights. Cathay Pacific no longer has anything to do with this plane.
This Boeing 777 is great news for passengers
What’s most interesting here is that Air New Zealand doesn’t plan to make any changes to the cabin of these jets, which is fair enough, given that this is a lease. So these planes will maintain Cathay Pacific’s four cabin layout. This is especially good news for business class passengers.
While Air New Zealand plans to introduce a new business class product in 2024, the carrier’s current herringbone business class is uncompetitive nowadays.
By comparison, this Boeing 777 will feature reverse herringbone seats in business class, representing a significant improvement over Air New Zealand’s product.
These planes also have six first class seats, and passengers seated in these will receive exactly the same service as in business class.
So, how do you assign these seats? At least on long haul routes, it seems that they’re bookable for an extra 590 NZD per person (~343 USD). Honestly, that premium seems fair given the quality of this product plus the length of this flight.
Former Cathay Pacific 777 will fly to Houston & Melbourne
Where will Air New Zealand fly this special Boeing 777? For the upcoming peak New Zealand summer season (winter in the United States), Air New Zealand will primarily fly the jet to both Houston and Melbourne. Here are the details, per AeroRoutes:
- As of November 30, 2023, the plane will fly 3x weekly between Auckland (AKL) and Houston (IAH)
- As of November 17, 2023, the plane will fly 3x weekly between Auckland (AKL) and Melbourne (MEL)
So the aircraft will essentially fly rotations from Houston to Auckland to Melbourne and back.
Bottom line
Air New Zealand is leasing a former Cathay Pacific Boeing 777 for a period of three years, in order to meet the increased demand until the airline can grow its fleet. This plane is maintaining the same interior it had while at Cathay Pacific, meaning it’ll be in a four class layout.
This is especially good news in business class, given that this plane has reverse herringbone seats, while Cathay Pacific’s standard business class seats are in a herringbone configuration. Furthermore, these planes have first class seats, which can be reserved for an extra fee.
What do you make of Air New Zealand’s newest Boeing 777 addition?
I'd appreciate any info or images on the Premium Economy seats please?
Got into that plane today.. economy definitely worse than standard air New Zealand fleet. Bad news for us in economy.
Any review on this flight? How was the experience on business or first class eat in row 1 and 2?
Shame they aren’t going to upgrade the wine selections to go with it
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.
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.
$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?
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.
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.
Im booked on seat 2k for my flight in February. I wonder if it is still damaged? Hope not :(
How was your experience in row 2?
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.
Absurdly underpriced for those seats.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 flew Asiana LAX-ICN in 2014 on a 747-400 and there no F seats, only J and C.
Easiest $590 one could ever spend...