IAH-OIL-TRASH

A 747 can land at OGG on Maui. That doesn't mean a 747 loaded up with fuel and passengers has enough runway to take off. A 787 probably can land at Wellington, but range it can go from there will be weight-restricted (read: fuel).

Delta used to fly a L1011 into Maui from DFW, but it had to then fly to Honolulu (refueling there), before it could have enough runway to make it back to Dallas w/ full passenger load.

cavemanzk

An 788 can land at WLG with an restricted payload, effectively could not carry much cargo at all. Take off wise, it would be heavily payload restricted to the point that it would need to stop in AKL or CHC to refuel and couldn't take cargo.

NZ has taken 772/77W into WLG a couple of times, most times with out passengers just for promo purposes and they where only to/from AKL or CHC. The only time that passenger 772 have been used to WLG was after the CHC earthquake as evac flights.

Wellington does have International services both to Fiji/Australia. The only place that CHC gets over WLG is the SQ Flight to SIN.

AKL - 1,418,000
WLG - 397,900
CHC - 379,100
HLZ - 212,000 (1.2hr drive from AKL)
NPE - 125,300
TRG - 123,500 (2hr drive from AKL)

hyho61

Reviving an old thread, UA cancelled the AKL service (allegedly in retaliation for the City of Houston approval of WN international service), but Air NZ has just now announced that the next US city they will fly will be Houston. Will UA code share on this, I am sure Air NZ is hoping for good connecting traffic to make this route work. Did UA miss the boat, they could have introduced the route in their own metal.

SeaRaptor

The official ANZ press release states:

"United will put its code on the Air New Zealand flights between Houston and Auckland, and points beyond."

Kmxu

The city and people of Houston won. Do you have to name a loser?

"Air NZ will begin nonstop service to George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) beginning in December 2015, using B772 and five flights per week."

bmr12

I guess folks wishing to redeem UA miles for premium cabin awards to NZ are losers too, since NZ apparently opens up very little premium space for awards, and presumably UA would have offered more.

J.Edward

Small chance on an award on NZ > No chance of an award on nonexistent UA flights.

Glad to see NZ here in IAH along with the other long-haul carriers: NH, SQ, KE, BR, KL, AF, BA, LH, TK, EK, QR, and 5Y (counting the LAD Houston Express).

ljwobker

That's what happens when you have a product that people are willing to actually pay for. I was lucky enough to snag an upgrade several years ago on an NZ 744 LAX-AKL - it was without question the most comfortable flight and the best inflight service I've ever had. I can see why they wouldn't have to give many of these seats away!

Singapore_Schwing

But the paying passengers also won, as NZ is MUCH nicer than UA in almost all respects (especially at the stubby end of the plane).

Kacee

LH, CX, OS, TK, many others have products people are willing to pay for, and they are reasonably generous with premium cabin award space.

I never understood why people here are so forgiving of NZ for basically thumbing its nose at the alliance.

SeaProf

For a different perspective, try making UA connections between LAX and SEA when flying NZ in or out of LAX. While there used to be options, those are largely gone and now NZ needs to use AS and VX to get to or from SEA. So I often miss out on frequent flyer points because UA has such limited connection possibilities.

Secondly, I'm very happy having cleared 15 of 16 transoceanic upgrades to Business on NZ since I switched from UA about 3 years ago - I fear that record would not be as good if they were more generous to other airlines in the alliance. Selfish reason, I know.

Kacee

UA can't even schedule to connect sensibly to their own international flights. No wonder *A partners are forced to look elsewhere.

Can't blame you for that!