Air New Zealand Announces Routes For New Business Class

Intro

A while ago, Air New Zealand announced that it had planned to retrofit their 787 cabins from a very old dated 1-1-1 configuration, to a beautiful looking business class product in a 1-2-1 configuration.

Well, it seems like the airline has done a remarkable job in terms of rollout times (since they decided to take it seriously, honestly, COVID was a setback), and we can expect to see these new cabins coming to the fleet rather soon.

The Details

As of yesterday, the first Air New Zealand has now been reconfigured and it set to enter service as of May 19th. If you are looking to fly this product, you can expect to find it every other day operating from:

• Auckland-San Francisco

• Auckland-Rarotonga

An Air New Zealand 787-9

I have to say, I find it interesting that Air New Zealand decided that San Fran was the best utilization of the aircraft. I would love to get a read into the airline's financials on US routes.

New Business Class Cabins

Air New Zealand's new business class cabins are simply gorgeous. While these won't be coming to any of the 777s, we can expect all of the 787s to be reconfigured with either 22 or 34 business class seats (+4-8 business luxe seats) in the coming months/years.

Air New Zealand New Business Class Cabin

New 787s are set to be delivered in 2026, but I would expect to see the current 787 fleet fully renovated before the new aircraft are delivered.

Final Thoughts

Air New Zealand has just announced its inaugural routes for their brand new business class cabins. As of May 19th, you can expect to see these cabins flying every other day to Rarotonga and San Francisco. With tickets set to go on sale as of May 7th, I'll be excited to see how the airline prices the business luxe suites!