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.
The Air New Zealand Fleet Structure and Its Peculiarities
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 range. Looking close up at its structure by:
- Long
- Medium
- Short
Air New Zealand’s Long-Range Fleet – Connecting the Country to Far-flung Destinations
The kiwi airline’s long range fleet is comprised of only Boeing planes. At the moment the airline owns and operates:
- 14 Boeing 787-9
- 9 Boeing 777-300ER
These planes cover the longest routes in the airline’s network. They fly 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 |
Although Air New Zealand doesn’t have a first-class product they do have something that looks a lot like it. What they have is Business Premier Preferred, which is in simple terms a first class cabin sold as a Premium Business Class.
The Airline’s Medium Range Fleet of Narrow Body Planes
The medium range fleet, is on the other side of the spectrum to the wide body fleet. What I mean by that is that there are only Airbus produced planes. The airline uses them to fly many of its routes towards Australia and secondary pacific destinations.
Within the Airbus family of narrow body planes Air New Zealand operates the A320neo and A321s in both CEO and NEO options. Notably there are also two distinct configurations for each of these planes as the airline has set up in different ways its planes destined for domestic and international routes.
At the moment Air New Zealand’s Medium range fleet features:
- 6 Airbus A320neo – Seating 165
- 17 Airbus A320-200 – Seating 168 in international config or 171 in domestic config
- 12 Airbus A321neo – Seating 214 in international config or 217 in domestic config
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 will feature a special all black star alliance livery.
The Air New Zealand Short Range Fleet
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 Havillands. More specifically:
- 29 ATR 72
- 23 Dash 8-300
Both the turboprop aircraft types feature a one class configuration with a 2-2 layout across the cabin.
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