mad_atta

True, though QF is also promising an all-new seat, which presumably will be an upgrade on what is already a much better seat product than NZ's... Interesting to see QF increasing seat pitch in PE (it seems) to more closely match NZ's.

sbiddle

Interesting to read the click bait NZ Herald story about Foran flying Singapore Airlines last week and saying how dated NZs BP offering is.

mad_atta

For those of us who can't access behind the paywall / are unwilling to pay for NZ Herald's "superior" journalism, was there anything of interest? Did he call out anything specific?

taupo

Sam Walton was famous for doing that and then "shamelessly adopting the best ideas for his own stores", Foran said. "Which is why I flew back last week on a Singapore Airlines flight. I wanted to see what they're doing better than us."

So what does Singapore Airlines do better than Air New Zealand?

Foran was asked by event moderator Fran O'Sullivan to elaborate on what he had learned.

"The answer is quite a lot to be honest," he said. "The product on our wide-bodied planes is now the best part of 20 years old."

Having lived out of New Zealand for 35 years Foran said he would travel home on Air NZ once a year.

"Over the last few years I'd be travelling out of the US - and I'd be sitting up the front [business class] and I'd go this was pretty good seven years ago, 10 years ago. It's not so good today," he said.

"I've done three international trips in the last week and it's definitely outdated," he said of Air NZ's Business Class product.

"We've got to do something with that seating configuration, with the space that's available.

"I feel a bit too side-on when it takes off. I can't look out the window ... there's a whole bunch of things around that."

mad_atta

Thanks for sharing, taupo.

Wait, what?! Why would Greg Foran be saying that if their new BP seat design replicates that exact same issue? Is there a chance that the leaked LOPA submitted for regulatory approval at the start of this thread was one of multiple options being considered, and is not in fact the final product?! Otherwise that seems like a very strange thing for the CEO to say ahead of their biggest new product launch in a decade...

nzkarit

The document at the start was an US regulatory document, that was incorrectly made public too early in process, from what I can gather.

Generally would go to the regulator with the final option not a range of options.

sbiddle

Looks like all will be revealed this week.

samjnz

I wonder if this will be as ambitious as the announcement back in 2010 -- that really did seem game changing at the time (with the space seat, skycouch etc)

kiwifrequentflyer

For Dreamliners, if I want to sleep, I'm currently either booking BP with cash. With so few BP seats, upgrades seem to be very risky, I've witnessed BP cabins fill up weeks out.

runtothehills

https://paxex.aero/air-new-zealand-b...-luxe-skynest/

mad_atta

Will be VERY interested to see whether the official launch does include skynest. If so, that's a genuinely innovative offering. Will be fascinated to see what sort of pricing they offer that at, and for how long - interesting that it seems to be positioned as something that you rent out for a few hours at a time.

Re the refreshed BP and BP luxe, based on those renderings it's clearly still herringbone (not reverse herringbone) but seems to be much more shrouding and privacy barriers to address the lack of privacy that many complain about with the current seats, and enclosing the footwell (so people will stop complaining about staring at rows of feet). But I'm still mystified as to why that seemed like a better solution than just moving to a reverse herringbone design.

kiwifrequentflyer

Sky Nest sounds like it would be lovely to fly in. I don't mind sitting in an economy seat for take off/landing and then immediately moving to my Sky Pod/bed for USA flights that are nighttime flights each way, if that would be cheaper than BP.

But it is confusing. How is this cheaper than BP for Air NZ? Not only do they need to dedicate an economy seat to you, they need to dedicate a section of their plane and reduce seats and/or cargo, to fit your beds in. How much will they have to charge for it, to make up for the lost opportunity?

And there are just 6 of them? So only 6 passengers get to benefit, from this new product? So they have to go to all of this extra effort, just for 6 passengers?

I'm honestly very confused.

bce1

Will be interesting to see.
But my reading of this and previous information released is that you would 'buy it" for 2-3 hours - so would be 12-24 people using and presumably bedding would be changed.

kiwifrequentflyer

That makes sense. In which case, fine for napping & being able to stretch your legs, but for not actual sleeping.

Xiaotung

This is exactly what baffles me. In order to make it worthwhile, it must be significantly cheaper than Business. I hope it just doesn't mean that in order to widen the gap between SkyNest and Business, they push Business fares up instead of making SkyNest affordable, which is what NZ would do. Even with just 6 pods, I still think it's a waste of aircraft real estate.