geography might help some airlines recover faster
 

looking at Air NZ, Australia to NZ - PER, ADL, MEL, SYD, OOL, BNE, CNS (have I missed any ?)

With exception of PER, all could be flown by A320s nonstop. PER/AKL might initially have to be one stop with an a320. Air NZ has traffic rights to sell an Australian domestic sector in isolation.

looking at Air NZ, from NZ to North America - YVR, SFO, LAX, EWR (NZ could use widebodied aircraft OR, it could do 1 stop with A320s)

so that's 7 x 4 = 28 routes

Qantas could never even come close unless it started flying to USA via AKL or somewhere similar.

The same advantage would apply to flights Australia to UK/EU. Singapore Airlines, Emirates etc. & any airline using a hub & spoke system, would have a huge advantage over nonstop flights.

As Qantas owns nearly 50% of Fiji Airways(FJ), wonder if they are talking to FJ & FIji govt right now about options of flying to North America, when things start to resume to normal ?

That way they could operate A330s or smaller aircraft on a one stop strategy.

If I recall correctly Air NZ used to fly NAN/LAX using a 767-300ER decade or 15 years ago.

Air NZ already transports many from Australia to North America 1 stop.

If consumers had the option of flying Air NZ, 2 stops to North America at $x or nonstop for 3 times $X, many would go for the latter, especially in a recssion.

This makes literally no sense.

NZ has 777's and 787's, and for the most part they're going to use them as soon as things open back up – even if it's for predominantly cargo runs.

They are even talking about removing the cabin interior from a 772 so they can bulk load through PAX doors.

The utility of a pax/cargo combi configuration would be very useful now. The RNZAF has 2 b757 combis


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...96f0c0c82.jpeg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6fda1bfb8.jpeg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...80196009c.jpeg

Though 757s can't fly to markets e.g. NA and Asia.

752F payload 38T 187m³
772ER belly 150m³ doing math MTOW - OEW - max fuel is 22T so can reduce range to get payload up to match.

When flights kick off again, airlines will probably schedule the smallest aircraft they can on routes, for example, that are one a day, even if it had to make a stop.

They don’t want to put a 300 seater & sell only 100 seats, when a 150 seater could have done the job.

When demand increases, they can put on a bigger aircraft.

Air NZ is in an enviable position of having plenty of options in choice of aircraft.

As far as long haul in a 737 ….

I remember an airline, that flew EU to Thailand in a 737, with 1 stop. I think it was Enter air.

A one stop AKL/LAX will probably not happen, but point was, it is possible.

I hope they do remove the seats to convert into temp cargo planes. For our business we cannot get enough space on flights to ship product globally and we've been chartering cargo widebodies from the usual air freighting suspects so that we can get all the product we need enroute. Be nice if we could send some of that money NZ way by chartering cargo flights from them

Air NZ flew a cargo flight to China this week I think, not sure what type of plane or how it was configured?

787

The first one was NZE with belly freight. Haven't looked at the subsequent flights. Think a few going to PVG and HKG

Unfortunately it is not as simple as just removing the seats and throwing in more freight.

Besides likely issues such as inadequate floor strength and the absence of the floor roller system to move pallets, there are regulatory and certification approvals required as well. At least if the current ‘rules’ are followed.

Cam Wallace on Twitter was saying bulk load through PAX doors. Not putting in a cargo door and loading pallets.

Also said the paperwork wasn't too bad. And they investigating doing one of their 772s as a start.

Cam Wallace is saying they are planning 14 PVG cargo flights next week. I'm guessing they are paxing pilots and just handing paperwork over at the door and only getting out to do the walk around.

Based on what I've read about the Aer Lingus flights currently shipping medical supplies back from PEK at the moment, they can't even get outside to do the walk around.

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/iris...y-21751435.amp

Good way to keep pilots employed, I guess

Keeping the 787 pilots current as well which will reduce the training costs when they start to return to pax operations.
777 plane will be next.
I saw one photo where the airline strapped boxes to the passenger seats as they cannot have unsecured cargo onboard.