oranjemakker

Actually thinking back to those heady pre covid days, NZ used to run a couple of flights a day that were domestic but flew from and to international terminal in Auckland. That was really good and took away the headache of AKL transit. From memory you cleared customs and immigration in CHC and then AKl was just a seamless connection.

not sure if those flights stacked up financially but that might be a way to address this issue

nzkarit

Immediately before was there way of doing the summer CHC-PER 787 flights, but think those ran as domestic flights with a bus from AKL domestic.

Way back in time with the 747s and stuff was a different time.

CHCflyer

Complex to manage, but the number of business class passengers that NZ carries via AKL to their network and their partners would warrant a cabin for them in the same way we see QF doing serving their hub.
Decades ago BA had a single domestic shuttle product (where everyone was fed and watered) but it didn't appeal to their US travellers. They introduced a business class cabin for the 40 minute hop to MAN which is always packed and extends for 9 rows usually.

nzkarit

Suppose for domestic that comes down to competitive pressure.

In recent times QF has had a competitor that also had business class. BA can lose customers to people flying to continent then back track to UK.

libertyuk

but let's be clear. BA domestic business (Club Europe) is NZ (soon to be gone) Works Deluxe, with lounge access and a hot meal. It is the same seating as domestic economy with the middle seat blocked off. Isn't even more seat pitch (which Works Deluxe is). Indeed most intra-European business class is this, with a few exceptions. NZ could obviously do "Euro-business", but its half-hearted attempt on A320/1s short haul international clearly hasn't worked commercially (it would need to bring back lounge access and offer upgraded catering/beverages perhaps, along with a moveable curtain divider to enable the front toilet to be exclusive).

Thai-Kiwi

They could if they wanted to do a Euro-style. I really think we are stuck with the mixed narrow/wide body offering that favours AirAucklanders…

mad_atta

It's worth noting that NZ's short-haul international routes currently flown by its narrow body fleet are, on average, a fair bit longer than the typical Eurobusiness routes in Europe (obviously there are MANY exceptions to this, but average flight lengths in Europe are generally pretty damn short) plus all regional competitors with business cabins have a real product, so I suspect they feel that would be very uncompetitive. It's a shame, I really liked NZ's narrowbody J product - especially the old 737-300s with their 46" pitch recliners, but the A320s were decent too.

But even a Eurobiz product with decent F&B offerings plus blocked middle and the existing Space+ pitch is a product I would welcome. I almost always fly at mealtimes and it would be nice to have a semi-civilised meal and decent glass of wine rather than the slop usually on offer in Works.

cavemanzk

I think they defiantly could of made works deluxe better, and the charged more for it.

It included say the PE meal, and lounge access surely that would of made it more appealing, and maybe even sold more than 2 rows of WD?

Surely they could of served WD the same meal tray the pilots get on the Tasman / Pacific flights? Think even the a320 pilots get this meal tray on domestic too at meal trays l?

if they already are catering for higher quality meal for the pilots l, surely they could just add another 8x to the order. The forward galley oven has plenty of room, it’s just used for crew meals and bread rolls…

Surely you would be even able to sell that product on some domestic routes? Eg AKL-ZQN.

mad_atta

I agree that Works Deluxe was always a pretty pitiful product and that with a bit of effort it could have been vastly better and something that enough users might find worth paying for (or upgrading to) to actually generate some useful volume as well. Never did understand the rationale for the product as it was, or who their target was who would actually pay for it (for any travellers with enough status for lounge access and priority boarding, the value clearly wasn't there).

samjaynz

My wife and I have used it several times when travelling with our baby (now toddler) as she wasn't old enough to have her own seat. However, by doing WD we could guarantee an empty seat in the 3 seat row so we had a bit of extra space for her and also no need to worry about somebody else having a poor flight experience owing to our kid. Was worth the premium for us, soon she will be old enough to book a separate seat. Wife and I are going TT in two weeks by ourselves and we've just booked regular seats, WD not worth it when it's just the two of us.