Air New Zealand in my opinion is one of the most fascinating airlines and fleets out there. The country’s positions and geography is such that the flag carrier has to fly some of the longest routes in the world and some of the shortest. This makes, from an aviation enthusiast’s point of view, the perfect recipe for a very interesting fleet. Let’s deep dive then into Air New Zealand’s fleet structure.
In this post:
- The Air New Zealand Fleet Structure
- Wide Body Fleet Choices
- Narrow body fleet choices
- The ANZ Regional Fleet
- Sign up to my newsletter
The Air New Zealand Fleet Structure and Its Peculiarities
| Aircraft Type | Units |
|---|---|
| A320neo | 6 |
| A321neo | 14 |
| A320-200 | 17 |
| ATR72-600 | 31 |
| 777-300ER | 10 |
| 787-9 | 14 |
| Dash 8-300 | 23 |
The kiwi national carrier has to be able to perform both extremely long journeys towards the United States and Asia, and quick short domestic hops. Therefore, Air New Zealand’s fleet features a balanced mix of wide and narrow body jets, along with turboprops.
Let’s then break down the airline’s fleet by aircraft type. Looking close up at its structure by:
- Long Haul
- Short Haul
- Regional
Having a a vast network of domestic destinations with small airfields forces Air New Zealand to have the relative majority of its air fleet in turboprop aircraft. They account for 47% of the total fleet.
The most remunerative routes, however, are operated by the smaller wide-body and narrow-body fleets. The narrow-body fleets operate the high-volume domestic routes and the cross-Tasman routes to Australia. Wide bodies are used for flights to Asia and North America.
Air New Zealand opted for a streamlined long-range fleet with only Boeing aircraft
The kiwi airline’s long range fleet is made up of only Boeing produced planes. At the moment the airline owns and operates:
- 14 Boeing 787-9
- 10 Boeing 777-300ER
Having one supplier of the most complex and high-maintenance aircraft in its fleet allows Air New Zealand to reduce complexity to a minimum. The Boeing 787 is a perfect fit for those routes that do not have a high capacity and therefore do not need a large cabin, such as the one provided by the 777.
Triple seven, on the other hand, is the aircraft used for the highest capacity destinations, such as those to:
- US
- China
- Japan
- Taiwan
- Canada
- Australia’s west coast
Both aircraft types come in 2 distinct cabin configurations. Here’s a quick recap:
| Aircraft | Business Premier | Business Class | Premium Economy | Economy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 777-300ER | 6 | 53 | 34 | 201 |
| 777-300ER | – | 40 | 32 | 296 |
| 787-9 | – | 18 | 21 | 263 |
| 787-9 | – | 27 | 33 | 215 |
| 787-9 | 4 | 22 | 33 | 213 |
And New Zealand has moved away from a first-class product on its wide-body aircraft fleet. What it has done instead is bridge the gap between business class and economy by introducing premium economy and the SkyCouch product.
The future of an Air New Zealand white body fleet
Air New Zealand is sitting on the fence, waiting to make a move for which planes to put on order to replace its Boeing 777-300ERs.
It is likely that the airline will maintain its policy of using only Boeing wide-body aircraft, and therefore the choice would fall on the larger 787-10 or maybe betting a little bit bigger on the 777X program.
The Airline’s Medium Range Fleet of Narrow Body Planes
As for its narrow-body fleet, Air New Zealand has gone with the other major aircraft producer, Airbus.
Specifically, the airline has chosen the A320 family of aircraft in its A320neo and A321neo and CEO options. Further breaking down these fleets, we can see that the airline has fitted them with two distinct cabin configurations one specifically optimized for domestic service, the other for international.
At the moment Air New Zealand’s Medium range fleet features:
| Quantity | Aircraft Model | International Seating | Domestic Seating |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | Airbus A320neo | 165 | 165* |
| 17 | Airbus A320-200 | 168 | 171 |
| 12 | Airbus A321neo | 214 | 217 |
Although, the airline states it has an international configuration, it doesn’t feature any proper business class seats. What I mean is that the cabin is setup throughout in a 3-3 layout with the only difference between seats being that the front of the cabin has a bigger pitch.
As a point of interest, the ZK-OYB aircraft features a special all black star alliance livery.
The Air New Zealand Regional Fleet – An Army of Little Turboprops
Last but not least we must take a closer look at the more nimble smaller planes in the airline’s fleet: the turboprops. These are used on the shortest routes on the network to the smallest airfields in the more remote areas of New Zealand. This portion of the fleet features both European made ATRs and Canadian made De Havilland. More specifically:
- 31 ATR 72
- 23 Dash 8-300
Both the turboprop aircraft types feature a one class configuration with a 2-2 layout across the cabin.