sbiddle

Latest with the neo engine drama Auckland - Hobart is being suspended (temporarily but with no return date at this point) from early April.

It's going to be interesting to see how bad this really turns out. Air NZ just have so few options available for aircraft.

nzkarit

And looking at the new year WLG-CHC appears to be getting more ATRs again.

sbiddle

Wouldn't surprise me if all the domestic 321s end up parked up.

Markhm

lots of my cabin crew frends are looking for new jobs, they aren’t confident of flying.

nzkarit

Also Soeul is out for 6 months along with Hobart.

And then there is the reschedule & changed frequency.

sbiddle

No Air NZ flights now showing on the day I'm flying back from Seoul in April

I guess we're lucky there are plenty of options via HKG, PVG, TPE, NRT and SIN and that we booked PE so are at least assured of that.

I really feel NZ have tried to downplay the possible impact of these issues, particularly at the AGM. Everybody in the know knew this was going to be really, really bad.

samjaynz

How far out does Air NZ typically communicate flight changes owing to this kind of disruption? I've had a Chch - Sydney flight for Feb next year adjusted in terms of departure time (got some app notification, moved by 30 mins IIRC) so I wonder if "that's it"?

edmm

Just spent an hour on the phone rebooting our trip to Korea in May, at least there are lots of options. Ended up through SIN and NRT, all in J.
Very helpful on the phone.

flyer94

Same - I had a direct flight booked from ICN-AKL in May. I lodged two RUs to try upgrade to J - I know ICN-AKL is less of a premium-heavy route. Now, I have to go via somewhere and I still want to use my RUs. Which route out of HKG, PVG, TPE, NRT or SIN do you guys think would statistically have less of a premium heavy focus i.e. more of a chance of my 2 RUs clearing... (sigh)

raznz

yup ICN also paused from April 2024 - https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/news/...ne-inspections

Speargrass Flat

They are probably wishing they had a few more ATR's on hand right now to service even more of the regional routes and free up jets for trans Tasman service. I flew for the first time today in a Dash 8 Q400 - probably the nicest turboprop passenger plane I have ever been on (similar size to an ATR with 70 seats but quite a step up in terms of noise and general cabin comfort). Couldn't help but think this might be the future of NZ regional flying. Way less carbon emissions per pax than a jet on a regional route.

samjaynz

Maybe I'm a bit of an outlier, as most of the posters here seem to do a lot of international, pointy-end-of-the-plane travel whereas I fly 90% of the time regional (e.g. Chch to Napier, or Auckland to Kerikeri) so I'm far more accustomed to the ATRs and Q400s than anything else.

Definitely prefer going on the Q400 - always feels like a bit of an event versus flying on the ATR which just has that slightly depressing "commuter plane" feeling.

My all time fondest air travel memory was being a passenger on a Croatian Airlines Q400 flying from Rome to Zagreb via some other city in Croatia whose name escapes me. The pilot - who I can only assume had his training on Soviet-era fighter aircraft based on the way he flew this thing - did all the taxiing at a pace that felt damn near takeoff speed, and the descent was so fast it was like being on a rollercoaster. My wife hated it, and I was having the time of my life.

sbiddle

They can't really free up jets for short haul intl services - the A320D and A321neo domestic fleet are all incapable of flying to Australia as they're not equipped to do so. Current A320neo and A321neo int capable aircraft don't actually fly that many domestic services, with most of the flights that they do fly simply being repositioning flights.

The A321neo domestic fleet are effectively the scapegoat in this whole saga with the whole fleet being parked up and the engines moved to the A320neo fleet. A321neo ZK-OYD arrived brand new from Airbus on Sunday and had it's engines stripped off, and that plane might not actually fly it's first passenger flight for quite some time.

Air NZ have been working to optimise their timetables over the past few months to improve aircraft utilisation and for those of us outside AKL it's been evident - I've (rather jokingly) said for months Air NZ is effectively ignoring WLG, and flights WLG/SYD for example are now day flights that are really unsuitable for many people but they have better utilisation for aircraft than they did with the old 0600 departures from WLG to MEL/SYD/BNE and the 2330ish arrivals from MEL/SYD/BNE

WLG Base

Yes, a friend has to fly back to WLG on QF due to an afternoon meeting in SYD and not wanting to do an overnight in AKL.

Latest flight from SYD via AKL with same day connection to WLG leaves at 13:45 with arrival in WLG at 22:10.

henrus

Stuff reports that some domestic aircraft
might be converted to enable international ops?