ANZ787900

Why would they? Just because they are going to codeshare doesn't mean that either airline is going to drop flights immediately. Nobody is taking anyone over. CX108 links to CX251 and other HKG-LHR flights perfectly as it is. Though I suppose if you were so desperate, you could contact them next month/Jan and ask to change flights to an NZ coded one.. Though I don't see the point, unless you wanted to spend a day in HKG before continuing on to LHR.

oranjemakker

But I guess that this could well be a logical (inevitable?) next step? Presumably as others have pointed out, loading on Air NZ AKL-HKG will drop because no more through pax, so that means they can now jointly reduce capacity by dropping one flight, increase prices on this now monopoly route, and screw everyone.

How on earth does this kind of shenanigan get past competition authorities?

Or have i got this all wrong and loading will increase as Air NZ say due to more choice on connecting routes etc.??

ANZ787900

They've kept PVG.. That's enough of a message to me that HKG will stay for at least the next year. There's bound to be far more traffic to HKG than there is to PVG, yet NZ insist on remaining to fly there. The thing is, I'm not talking about 2-5 years down the track. Things might be different then - the 789 could be operating to HKG and they might find another route to Europe to open up. Or it could be dropped completely. But I doubt it.. As long as they can make inroads with the connections with KA/CX into China, they'll keep trying to feed traffic onto the Air NZ operated service.

libertyuk

What I find is odd is that the new NZ schedule for AKL-HKG-AKL is similar to that of the AKL-HKG-LHR schedule, which means very late departure from AKL - early arrival in HKG, then an aircraft sitting in HKG all day until an early evening departure and late AM arrival in AKL.

This requires 2 777s rather than 1, which was the old operating pattern of an early PM departure, late PM arrival in HKG - 2 hour turnaround with an overnight back to AKL (which parallels the daily CX flight).

Whilst I can imagine CX would want NZ to maintain its current schedule, which may suit some connections onwards from HKG in the early AM, it does tie up an additional aircraft. The only way that would work is if the yields from such connections are very good, the loads are better not competing directly with CX and NZ is now able to price more highly given the agreement with CX.

What else it does is limit NZ's ongoing connections to Europe (if not China) to the CX daylight flight to LHR. Given how HKG has been useful before for connections on LH to FRA/MUC and LX to ZRH, it's a little surprising that NZ has given up on this, and sees the LAX connection as superior - which it most certainly is not.

mmonster

this was exactly my concern when I first responded to this post, I am worried, extremely worried that the time slot will change or there could be a equipment change....

As I said before I would be the first one out if the 772 was to be replaced by 767s. The fact that plane will be sitting there for the entire day does worry me but they cannot fly to China from HK, no slots, no rights (you can see even CX/KA is struggling to secure good slots as is, the new JV btn MU/QF with Jet Star HK will be interesting), the closest might be Osaka or Tokyo but it is rather unlikely (AI/UA do these), TG flies to Taipei from HK. It will be just as bad to fly to SIN, the current competition with 5x daily from SQ/CX and LCC on this route is making this quite impossible with just one flight a day.

There is nothing much I can think of within the time it has available, it has to depart at 9am (from HKIA, which is good as the slots are quite over subscribed as it it classified as "prime slots" and for the aircraft to land at around 5pm to ensure on time departure back to AKL

Should they decide to move the timing on NZ flight, it will hurt their bookings, it is my fav time that I can afford to take one less day off work and arriving fresh in the morning!

Xiaotung

It's the same with their PVG route. The plane gets towed away from the gate after it has arrived and towed back before the flight back to AKL. The plane spends more than 7 hours in Shanghai. Wouldn't have PEK been a tag on much better? They would have achieved daily into PVG long ago but of course unless this was a slot issue.

mmonster

I'd like to be wrong, but I have never heard of foreign airlines operating domestic China routes or doing another tag on? Local carriers do a lot of that hopping between few major cities before flying international ports... I am not an expert on 5th or whatever rights.. but I do not think it is a feasible option and the slots at PEK is so over subscribed so NZ has worked with CA for pax going to PEK.

Xiaotung

You are right. NZ wouldn't have traffic rights between PVG and PEK but they could do PVG-PEK without domestic pax. TK used to do IST-PEK-PVG before PVG went direct.

Blackcloud

IMO a ridiculous proposition and if you think about it you can understand why NZ would not make such an uneconomic decision for keeping a dot on their route map.

global happy traveller

The time arriving and departing HKG are good..... and it also gives good connection times out of both HKG and AKL to additional destinations....

as for the downtime from 6am to 7pm.... in my view there is tremendous potential to tag on another regional leg (something 3-4 hours flying time)..... like PVG, PEK, ICN, NRT, TPE, BKK, SIN......

then again, i dont know if Air NZ is considering outsourcing its maintenance to the folks in HK....like some of the North American carriers are doing to save some money

zqsn5678

Ex- HKG is very competitive, NZ not only have to compete with CX/KA but also the regional airlines of those cities.

Some European airline I think was LH or LX or TK ? had fifth freedom between SIN and somewhere regional, recently ended the route!

global happy traveller

But if the loads are low, like the NZ99/90 I flew only had 90ish pax in total, it would be cheaper to tag along (even though it be a few hours longer in flying time) than to operate an additional plane.

global happy traveller

Actually, on the day that I flew, NZ did exactly that.......... AKL-NRT-KIX

craver

I think they're far more interested in point to point these days and would rather have aircraft sitting unused than do a multi-sector journey. There would need to be a pretty compelling reason to deviate from that.

Back in the day they used to do DPS-SIN, SYD-BKK, BNE-BKK, SIN-BKK etc but now they're not interested.

ANZ787900

They carry a lot of cargo and sometimes that pays for the flight itself.