I suspect that the new CEO will reverse this.
Rob Fyfe is reported to still have considerable antipathy to the UK - which may or may not be linked to his commercial history there - and the "long-haul review" - which seems to have been buried - was reportedly tasked on numerous levels with exploring options for the closure of the LAX-LHR and HKG-LHR sectors and their replacement with codeshares. But supposedly the review could not find evidence to support those changes.
But there is a new incoming CEO who is clearly focused on developing North America and London and who reportedly does not share the outgoing CEO's preference for routes delivering package tourists from developing markets.
A move to TBIT is not compatible with the ongoing operation of the Auckland - Los Angeles - London route, because the transit time would increase time on the ground from 2 hours to 4 hours and be massively inefficient.
But I'm not sure that Luxon will sanction that.
Yes, some years ago a friend with some "insider knowledge" said that having an Air NZ base for staff at LHR was uneconomic without a higher frequency of service. AKL-HKG-LHR was intended specifically to:
- Address capacity limitations between Europe and NZ, specifically the UK which remains the largest market;
- Enable NZ to be competitive with SQ, EK, CX etc. because the US transit puts off a fair proportion of premium passengers flying LHR-LAX-AKL;
- Shift loyal NZ FFs off of the AKL-LAX-LHR route to enable NZ to make more from the relatively lucrative LAX-LHR sector in its own right.
With the recent collapse of UK-NZ inbound tourism (due to the economic environment and relativity of the £/NZ$) the LHR routes have been decimated. HKG-LHR suffers from a lack of premium traffic because the timing of the HKG-LHR ( but not LHR-HKG) sector isn't ideal for business travellers, and most UK and HKG business travellers are either BA or CX FFs, and have multiple frequencies on both airlines (and mutual FF privileges).
I think you're right about TBIT.
However, as all the times I've come through it on NZ1/NZ2 LHR-AKL I've been in BP, I've always gone to the lounge and so never needed to pick up my checked luggage. It is plausible that NZ could maintain this in theory, except that if people are NOT going into a holding pen, but clearing immigration they will have entered the US - and could theoretically stay there leaving checked luggage on an onward flight, which will be deemed a security risk - and need to be offloaded.
The worst I've ever had at LAX for immigration (albeit some 10 years ago) was 2 hours, I recently went through SFO where it took just over 1 hour to clear immigration. Unless NZ can somehow ensure that it gets dedicated lanes for clearance of NZ1/NZ2 in transit (extremely unlikely), it is going to be hit and miss and the onwards legs of those flights will risk being delayed as people haven't cleared immigration, customs (which wont be avoidable even with just hand baggage) and security, again.
Let's be honest, AKL-LAX-LHR isn't about the AKL-LHR traffic, which should be on the HKG route (although in my experience I pick the route based on a combination of pricing, product (PE via HKG isn't worth it) and upgrade chances if not in paid BP), it is about NZ-US and UK-US O-D traffic, in which case TBIT could be a slightly better experience.
As an aside, if VS stays in T2 it may want to takeover the NZ lounge for a Clubhouse, as this is a key part of its brand and product differentiation from BA (and on this route, NZ).