First of all a big welcome and congrats to Bruce for joining FT and already making great contribution to the forum. Your help and advice is extremely welcome and useful.

Secondly Bruce you might want to delete your personal contact info from the public thread, as FT gets quite a few scammers/spammers. If you leave the info here as it is you might get emails/texts/calls selling electronics/Air Jordans/LV handbags

Lastly my personal thoughts on the restructured products and services:

1. Objective

I am guessing the main objective of this restructuring is to better compete against Virgin and Jet Star - the two biggest (if not only) competitors in the NZ-AU and Pacific routes. The restructuring either increases the passenger load and/or the yield (by selling meals/baggage, etc), and decreases some overheads (food, baggage handling?)

Bascially, to maximise profit/minimise loss and minimise loss of marketshare to DJ and JQ on Trans-Tasman, Pacific and NZ domestic routes.

2. Strategy

Become the price leader with more frequency than the competitors, while maintaining the image/brand of great service/product that is not Jet Star

3. Tactics - this is where I have doubts, and personally I think Air NZ can do a LOT better or differently

- LCC pricing. The currently advertised "Seat" "Seat Plus" "Works"... are too complicated. It's like fast food combos that you have to have a soft drink, despite I rather want a sundae or just burger + fries. This may be good short term to extract revenue (like telco's various monthly plans) but I don't know about the long-term sustainability in the competitive airline business.

For aircraft with no business seats, simply use a la carte approach like Ryan Air and US-based airlines - some passengers want movies but don't want extra baggage allowance, or vice versa.

It's probably easier for everyone to have the same base (seat), then incrementally add up the costs. If food and drinks offering are of good quality and competitive pricing, people will pay for it, and more than one.

- Works Deluxe

That sounds like Business Class with an economy class seat, and "neighbour-free guarantee".

How does "neighbour-free guarantee" work? Can't NZ sell business class on the aircraft other than A320 as it is? Penny pinchers won't pay that much to have another economy seat, and flyers who want to splurge will pay for a business class seat anyways.

4. Different aircraft types

I think it was a mistake that Air NZ killed Freedom Air - with a LCC brand, consumers know it's gonna be usually cheap and they have lower expectations. The All-A320 fleet could operate as Freedom Air (or Kiwiair, to go with Kiwibank, Kiwirail, etc ) - the price-conscious travelers can identify it quickly and Air NZ can schedule accordingly - prime time connections/flights on "better" birds as Air NZ.

People can choose what type of flying experience they want and pay accordingly.

5. Brand equity/awareness

Air NZ has tried hard and successfully become a carrier of quality - I understand it wants to achieve its profit/loss objectives but to operate like Jet Star is not the way to go forward I think. I don't think SQ or EK will start LCC operations with their prestigious names. Even Thai knows that and it calls its LCC son Nok Air.

When I buy an Air NZ ticket, I expect my economy class flight to be a good experience without worries of paying $5 for a drink and $10 for a bag, etc. I expect to pay for those when I fly Jet Star, Virgin Blue, etc because I KNOW they are cheapo, low cost airlines. Maybe it's just me, but I think most NZers are like me, when they think of Air NZ, they will think of it better than DJ, and at least, JQ.

It will be a complete cycle when this restructuring goes live: full service - freedom - full service (when you pay extra).

I can see how Air NZ management want to have the best of the worlds - trying to be a LCC in Australasia and maintaining the aura of a 4/5-star long haul airline, but I don't think the right execution is there yet

Just my 2c