From my understanding it was to allow the crew to ‘social distance’ from the passengers. Air NZ were previously restricting the number of seats available for sale (i.e. on the V2 787 with 27 J seats they were only selling 18 of them) and putting all pax into the J/K seats.

It now appears that they are opening up the full availability. It’s quite likely that Air NZ’s res control team just haven’t removed the block from the A seats. I flew recently AKL-SYD and was in 9A. Flying back tomorrow in 9A as well. Full flight over and appears completely full tomorrow as well.