oranjemakker

Hi all,

Just expanding on a point about pricing of NZ PE being discussed in the thread comparing PE in the 777 vs 747. Since it was off the main topic thought I would start a new thread.

i wanted to concur with some of the comments made in that thread that pricing on NZ PE does seem exorbitant, and I don't get how they get away with it on competitive routes like LHR (or anywhere in Asia/ Europe).

I am flying to London in a few weeks, and got a Thai biz class special for less than NZ$7,500 including all taxes. On the same dates NZ PE priced between NZ$5,800 and $6,500.

So for a premium of only $1,000 - $1700 you can get biz class plus Star Alliance benefits, plus a lot more Airpoints (330 vs 520 on the round trip if i did my maths right) and a pretty smooth connection (only 3 hrs in BKK). While Thai biz class is of course nowhere near as good as NZ biz premier, its a whole world better than NZ PE IMHO.

Still, they are obviously getting away with their pricing since it seems to be sold out all the time... am I missing something? Maybe people are buying PE to get mileage upgrades or free upgrades to Biz premier?

PE must be EXTREMELY profitable for NZ!

shore9

Would NZ likely expand their PE product?

Ann Tyrol

Ex-HKG it's a very nice option.

Including taxes, the cheapest I can usually get to NZ for (return) is around HK$7000 give or take a few hundred dollars. During peak season, even these fares are pretty hard to come across, and given that only Air NZ and CX do the HKG-AKL direct route AFAIK, the competition is somewhat similar to the Vodafone / Telecom "competition" in NZ

In peak seasons (Easter, Xmas and CNY), Cathay fares to NZ rise to around $9k or $10k, as do Air NZ fares. Business in either CX or Air NZ ranges from between HK$30k to HK$35k.

The beauty of PE is that the fares are fixed and don't change from peak season to non-peak season (flexi and non flexi is the choice). So, we can book 9 months out from Christmas and have our seats reserved and know the price, whereas with Y we would be relying on the agent to keep an eye on the various deals coming out from the airlines closer to the time.

Given that we usually travel to NZ in peak season (Easter and Xmas), the choice between paying about HK$8 - 10k to go Air NZ or Cathay economy (closer to the higher end usually) as compared to HK$10.5k in PE is a bit of a no brainer. Better food, better seat, quieter cabin... it's worth the extra dollars. Plus, since we have no accommodation costs in NZ, there's no "we should spend the difference on better accommodation" discussion.

I really like the PE pricing ex-HKG, but it's really due to the time of year I fly and the relatvie increase in Y at those times of the year.

AndDee

They only just recently expanded PE on the 744 by another 8 seats!

The first PE seats on the 744 were upstairs only and were 23 seats in total

Then in 2006, I think, they added another 8 seats downstairs, so NZ removed 12 Economy seats and made 8 PE seats

Then in Sept/Oct 2007 they added another 8 seats downstairs again removing 12 seats in Economy and now a total of 39 PE seats.

Comapre this to what V Australia (Virgin Blues' new long haul carrier flying from SYD to USA in late 2008). Plane will be a 777-300ER

40 Business Class - 46 on NZ 744
75 Premium Economy - 39 on NZ 744
230 Economy - 294 on NZ 744

So V Australia will not purely be going for the cheap lesuire market with that setup, nearly double the PE seats than NZ have on their 744.

All that being said NZ may very well want to expand PE again on the 744 but it would be a hard decision to make.

The next Economy cabin on the 744 has 74 seats, so they would really have to loose 74 Economy seats and add around 46 Premium Economy seats, which I think would be too hard to fill!

As a result they keep increasing the price of Premium Economy to keep a balance between supply and demand on the 744, they don't want to always sell out so they just increase the prices in line with demand. How high will PE go ? Well depends when they stop filling seats

As for the 777 it's a rubbish product and I do feel sorry for anyone that pays for PE on this plane.

The 787 and 777-300ER's will have a totally new style of seating, NZ has in fact confirmed this, so new suites for BP, bigger and wider seats for PE hopefully and Y seats a bit better again.

The 787 and 777-300ER are due to start deliveries in late 2010 and early 2011. Alot will change on the Australia/NZ route to the USA by then!

AndDee

Thanks for reading my other posts and starting this thread

I have read that alot of people purchase PE and then try to upgrade to Biz Prem, but that being said I think alot of people purchase PE as they don't want to be stuck in Economy for 12+ hours and can't justify the Biz Prem price.

As I said in the other thread, NZ priced PE out for me on my trip in a few weeks MEL-YVR-MEL. PE on the 777 (Bad Bad Bad) would have cost around $4200, but moving later into 2008 most days the price is around $4500. This is more than DOUBLE discount Economy!!

I and lots of other people have booked on AC with AMEX's companion fare, NZ used to be a part of this but left it a few years ago! AC has also possibly not renewed this with AMEX either for 2008 From what I have been told AC's J cabin on the SYD-YVR route has many many people using the AMEX companion fare, so fingers crossed AMEX/AC renew this great offer.

Basically I paid $8000 each for MEL-SYD-YVR-SYD-MEL tickets in J on AC, a saving of around $4000 per person!!!!

NZ are raising the prices of PE to suit demand they really can't expand PE on the 777 or 744 easily so prices are being raise to lower demand but still keep most of the seats filled.

V Australia will have an impact on NZ and they are goign to have 75 PE seats! ^

On that note Mid Feb is the launch date for the routes and bookings for V Australia

Hopefully some good deals!

shore9

Couldn't they move to a 2-4-2 or even 2-3-2 layout on the 777's and take out a row or two of Y. Sounds like they would have no problem filling a few extra seats.

AndDee

They could do that of course, but 2-4-2 would be a reduction of 2 seats so it would be an extra $250 roughly increase on each seat price of PE. The other problem with 2-4-2 is that it would mean a weird layout which all Y passengers need to walk through upon boarding and disembarking, probably slowing down the process as well, much like a S bend...

If they went 2-3-2 it would be a reduction of 4 seats so each PE seat price would have to increase by around $500 for a MEL-AKL-YVR length trip.

They would have to move the bulkhead to add more seats to PE on the 777 which would cost $$ and if it was still 3-3-3 seating I dont think another one or two rows would make much of a difference.

The 777-200's that NZ use are for the low yeild routes so more PE probably wouldn't fill up. The 744's could do with more PE but NZ have chosen to increase prices to reduce demand and increase profit at the same time.

ACYYZ/SD

Flew Air NZ's Biz Premier in November. At the gate it was apparent on both the outbound and return that they could have benefitted from more PE seating.

There is however the issue of manpower deployment. I observed that the crew looking after BP on the 777 also looked after the PE cabin. There didn't appear to be a dedicated crew for the PE service. Adding more PE seats would diminish the availability and personalized service in BP unless they were to add additional and dedicated crew members.

ajnz

On 11/01 NZ6, the upper deck PE had one NZ*G (upgraded from Economy), and 2 NZ*S. No other status pax, which would (somewhat) imply very few upgrade attempts to business. I think there were a lot of people who bought it, as you said. I was on a full U fare, and got upgraded to business after a very involved fiasco. My apologies to anyone on the flight who was wondering why we left 40 mins late.
I just paid NZD3719 for WLG-AKL-LAX-AKL-WLG in premium economy, which I think is fair value.

I think a lot of businesses are now paying for PE over E, given the small incremental cost but the much bigger benefits to their traveling staff. This is at least the situation with my employer, as we have (yet another) hiatus on business class.

jswong

Perhaps but i've looked into this from a predominantly UA FF perspective. B fares from NZ to the US via SYD costs much less. I have one in May which cost $3070 NZD (almost $700 cheaper). Once one reaches 1P or greater on UA then the 100% bonus miles kicks in. Mileage upgrades on UA to the US cost 15K each way. Therefore, without using any SWU's, and if booking far enough ahead one can confirm upgrades (on the SYD-US segment) for less than the amount of miles accrued

Of course there are other factors to consider (such as schedule) and i've never flown NZ PE but I expect UA C is overall better than NZ PE

Perhaps I am different to most who fly NZ-US but at least for me PE is out of the question. Of course i'm thinking of a trip to HKG and NZ PE looks appealing

Jeff

ajnz

Jeff,

What you suggest makes a lot of sense. The only reason it doesn't work for me is:

1. I'd have to get the corporate TA to specifically book a B-fare, which would be flagged as an exception if there were other fares available. Amusingly, NZ PE doesn't do this.
2. If I can't confirm that upgrade, I'm stuck in UA Economy
3. My travel plans are often made at short notice, which means that upgrade availability would be tricky. The whole 'PE isn't so bad, but biz on the day might work out' approach works well for my needs on this particular fare.

Given that I was heading on through to Ottawa, the airfare was reasonable.

The other thing is that you have to fly sort of 6 hours out of your way (WLG-SYD + longer SYD-LAX sector) in each direction which isn't so appealing.

Point taken though and I will have a look at it in the future - maybe for personal travel rather than business.

trooper

It is a good point... having just booked/upgraded a friend (using his account and miles for him as he didn't have a clue..)..

As it stands NOW (apparently...) Buying a Y/B sufficiently early gives a VERY good chance of being able to confirm the UG's each way at time of booking... I just checked availability on seatcounter before pulling the trigger on that fare.. and then called and had the outbound UG applied (couldn't do it online on ual.com.au for some reason)... when the required miles for the return hit his account I used .bomb and processed that upgrade in about 2 minutes...

Seems very slick - IF you are - like us - recreational travellers who CAN book well in advance...

If I did enough travel to maintain status with NZ AND earn with UA I'd jump at it.... for that reason alone... B fares ex-SYD + 30000 miles = C both ways? Good value I reckon... even better value ex- New Zealand obviously!!

Presumably this will become less feasible as (if/when) the new configurations come online?? (Less C seats?)

Buzz53

Thanks for this. It will be interesting to compare PE on 3 airlines to the US from Australia: Air NZ, V Australia and Qantas. Looking forward to some competition on this overpriced route.

Where can I found out about PE in V Australia?
Be interested in details and pics to compare product.
Tried Google but came up with nothing.

AndDee

There are no prices or details for V Australia as yet, they are annoucing their route/s and pricing in the middle of February.

Being Virgin I expect their Business and PE product to be very nice and probably a step above NZ, to compete with Qantas.

The 75 PE seats indicate that Virgin are not chasing the low end market, and will probably leave that to Jetstar!