LAN commence 787 service

LAN have today commenced their dedicated 787 service to Auckland and Sydney.

LA801 operated by Boeing 787-8 CC-BBA departed Santiago 39 minutes late at 00:44CLST Friday 17-April-2015 bound for Auckland and onto Sydney.

The final A330 service on the route was operated by A330 CC-CQF as LA800 and departed Sydney at 10:17AEST Friday 17-April-2015 bound for Auckland and onto Santiago.

Later this year LAN will again upgrade the LA801/800 service moving from the Boeing 787-8 to the Boeing 787-9

CC-BBA the first LAN 787-8 on LA801 departing Santiago for Auckland and Sydney

News round up vlog

Time for another video post, this time rounding up some of the recent news from Air New Zealand, Qantas, Scoot and LAN

Sad & Beautiful

THE SAD

Air New Zealand has lost one of its first female captains to a suspected brain aneurism shortly after she landed NZ175 a Boeing 787-9 in Perth.

Captain Ann Barbarich a 27 year veteran with the airline, was well respected in the Air New Zealand and New Zealand Aviation communities.

She was part of a four man flight crew on board the flight, and made a textbook landing before becoming unwell.  She was initially treated by doctors on board before being rushed to Perth hospital.

The thoughts of this blog are with her family and colleagues after this terrible event.

Read about Captain Barbarich via The New Zealand Herald HERE or stuff.co.nz HERE

THE BEAUTIFUL

The New Zealand Herald have also run an article this week on the interior refits of the Air New Zealand Boeing 777-219 fleet.  The article and video mentions and shows the second of the aircraft to undergo the upgrade ZK-OKE.

Business Premier refit of ZK-OKE - photo © New Zealand Herald

Read the story and watch the video HERE

"First" Flights On Recently Changed Routes

As reported earlier on this blog and elsewhere there have been some changes to international schedules into and out of Australasia, and these schedules have now begun.

Virgin Australia ended its MEL-LAX flights on Sunday and up gauged its BNE-LAX services to daily.  
While the new service began on Sunday the first of the additional arrivals occurred this morning when Boeing 777-3ZGER VH-VPD arrived into Brisbane as VOZ8

With the new codesharing agreement between Singapore Airlines and Air New Zealand taking effect on the Singapore - Auckland route, today saw the first Airbus A380 flight on the SQ285/286 service, operated by A380-841 9V-SKB.  

Singapore will continue to operate its Boeing 777-200s on SQ282/281 evening service until January when this is replaced by an Air New Zealand Boeing 777-219 service, under the code NZ281/282.  

The A380 service will operate over the southern summer, and is expected to return to a Boeing 777-300 service at the end of March 2015.

Today also saw Untied's first International Boeing 787-9 route with the direct LAX-MEL UA98 route touching down on Australian soil.  Boeing 787-9 N38950 inaugurated the now direct service and is set to return direct to LAX as UA99 at time of writing.  This route previously operated with a Boeing 777-200 and a stop in SYD.

Inside the NZ 787-9

Air New Zealand have released a video to their youtube channel which takes viewers inside the new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner ZK-NZE 

The video shows the seats in the three different classes, Business Premier, Premium Economy & Economy, as well as mentioning some of the features and the menus in each cabin.

NZ announce strong profit

Its finical reporting season for Australasian aviation, and first out of the blocks was Air New Zealand reporting their third straight year of profit with a net profit of $262M(NZD).  This net profit represents a 45% increase on FY13.

Chairman Tony Carter said that the result represented the third consecutive year of strong earnings growth for the airline.  “This is a result Air New Zealand can be proud of. Our employees, our customers and our shareholders can be confident that Air New Zealand continues to be a world leading airline both in terms of customer experience and financial performance,” Mr Carter said.

Air New Zealand reported an 84.1% Load Factor for FY14 with 13,719,000 passengers carried.  This is mainly thanks to domestic passengers, with domestic capacity up 5.4% on the back of the replacement of the Boeing 737-300 fleet with Airbus A320s, and the introduction of new ATR 72-600s.  Domestic saw 8,920,000 passengers with a load factor of 81.1%.

FY15 will see the biggest increase in fleet numbers with a total of 10 aircraft entering the NZ fleet. 2x Boeing 787-9, 4x Airbus A320, 3x ATR 72-600 & 1x Boeing 777-300.  In the same period the remaining Boeing 747-400 will retire and the Boeing 737-300 fleet will dwindle to just 2 frames.

Read more on the Air New Zealand result via their releases to the New Zealand Stock Exchange 
- each section includes a downloadable pdf document
 - Media Announcement
 - Shareholder Review and Financial Report
 - Annual Results Fact Sheet
 - Results Analyst Presentation

Painting ZK-NZE B787-9 time lapse video

Air New Zealand have posted a great time lapse video of the painting of their first Boeing 787-9 ZK-NZE

NZ announce first 789 route

Perth is the winner with Air New Zealand announcing its first route with the Boeing 787-9 will be AKL-PER in October next year.

Chief Executive Officer Christopher Luxon made the announcement at the official opening of the airline’s Customer Innovation and Collaboration Centre in Auckland today. A feature of the centre is the only Boeing 787-9 full cabin interior outside the factory in Seattle.

The cabin mock-up has outlined how Air New Zealand will outfit its interior with 302 seats in a 3 class layout.  18 lie flat Business Premier seats, 21 Premium Economy seats and 263 economy seats.  All seats feature a new entertainment system which is slimmer and has a higher resolution than that on the 773.

'We've taken advantage of new inflight entertainment hardware and that's allowed us to introduce new monitors and also allowed us to slim down the back of the seat considerably from those which have had inflight entertainment. (in the past) That allows much more personal space."

Air New Zealand program director Kerry Reeves with in flight service manager Priyanka Girish
Photo / Dean Purcell /nzherald

Read more on the new 789 cabin and the first flights to PER at Air New Zealand's Flying Social Network HERE or the nzherald HERE

1st Flights

 

Two new aircraft for local airlines have recently had their first flights.  Both are new Boeing 787 aircraft VH-VKA a 787-8 for Jetstar and N789EX (to be ZK-NZC with Air New Zealand) the first Boeing 787-9

photo via Airchive .com

VH-VKA took to the air for the first time on Saturday 14-September-2013 at 16:40 local time on a 1hr 33min flight to/from Moses Lake.  Read more from Australian Aviation HERE or Ausbt.com HERE

photo Boeing via Australian Aviation

The first Boeing 787-9 has taken to the air as part of the Boeing test/certification program for the model.  The frame will become ZK-NZC the third 787-9 to be delivered to Air New Zealand in 2015 after it has finished its Boeing test program.

The 789 departed Everett this morning (17-September-2013 local) at 11:02 and performed a five hour flight testing the aircraft's systems and structures.

NZ Profit Jumps

Air New Zealand have announced a full year net profit of $182m (NZD) for the year ended June 30 2013.  This represents a jump of 156% on the previous year with a record operating cashflow of $750m (NZD)

The airline is paying a final dividend of 5 cents a share, taking its total dividend for the year to 8 cents a share - a 45 per cent jump from last year's shareholder payout. The profit lift was largely anticipated by analysts.
Chairman John Palmer said this morning's result placed Air New Zealand amongst the best performing airlines globally.
"We are focused on further improving on this result in the 2014 financial year. Based on the airline's forecast of market demand and fuel prices at current levels, early results and forward bookings are encouraging." he said.

The airline has also announced they will spend $1.8b on new aircraft over the next 3 years, made up of 9 additional Airbus A320 aircraft for their Domestic fleet renewal, 2 additional Boeing 777-319ERs and 9 new Boeing 787-9s for their international fleet.

Read more about the Air New Zealand profit from stuff.co.nz HERE or the New Zealand Herald HERE or check out the full Air New Zealand results presentation pdf HERE

787-9 roll out

Image Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren via ausbt.com.au

Boeing have rolled out the first 787-9 from their hanger, and while this is not technically Australian/New Zealand news, its getting a mention here in NZ Aviation Notes as once the testing program is complete this aircraft will arrive in the Air New Zealand fleet.

Boeing expects this first 787-9 to make its inaugural test flight next month, and says that many lessons from the production of the 787-8 have been fed into the evolution of the -9.

I cannot wait to see this bird in one of the new Air New Zealand liveries previously mentioned on this blog (HERE)

The anticipation of the launch of the 787-9 by NZ grows with every passing day.  Read the full article by Australian Business Traveller editor David Flynn HERE

NZ 789 routes

On their blog (theflyingsocailnetwork) Air New Zealand have announced the routes and seating for their new Boeing 787-9's

Air New Zealand is the launch customer for the 787-9, the first of which is due to roll off the production line at Boeing in Seattle next month. Chief Executive Officer Christopher Luxon says the 787-9 is a game changer for the airline.

As expected they will predominantly replace the Boeing 767-319s on Shanghai, Papeete and Honolulu, but they will also replace the Boeing 777-219 on Tokyo and Perth.

The interior will feature almost 4 tiers of seating with Business, Premium Economy which will be known as business-lite, 16 rows of skycouch then economy.

• In the Premium Economy cabin the airline has worked with US seat designer Zodiac on a customised seat best described as Business-lite. This comfortable ink coloured luxury leather seat will have a 41” pitch, a generous 5” wide armrest and a leg rest and extendable foot support which will allow passengers to really stretch out and relax.

Read more about the new seating arrangements on theflyingsocialnetwork HERE

New look NZ

Air New Zealand have taken to Facebook to release their new look livery with two separate photo's showing a new black livery and a new white livery.

The new look will begin to roll out on aircraft later this year, time will tell what these look like on the aircraft, if you have any thoughts or comments then leave them in the comments

Black Livery © Air New Zealand

White Livery © Air New Zealand

Air New Zealand news

Air New Zealand held their annual Investor Day Presentation on Tuesday and the presentation is now online at the NZX website as can be seen HERE  I have scrolled through all 94 slides and here are some of the key points

The new strategy for this year seems to have been entitled go beyond and features heavily in the presentation

© Air New Zealand

Air New Zealand seem to have focused their route strategy onto the Pacific Rim and will focus on direct flights

© Air New Zealand (slide 10)

When looking for new markets within this region Air New Zealand will focus on

1. Market size to support 2-3 weekly services
2. Higher yielding traffic mix >Bus/VFR
3. Strong historical and projected growth
4. Strong point-to-point market
5. Focused markets (1-2 main cities)
6. Structural advantage, mostly outbound
7. Conduct advantage - network, cost or product

From this there are four main conclusions

1. Playing in the right markets
2. Working with the right partners
3. Australasian business portfolio
4. Pacific Rim network focus

From the following slide I get the impression that the new B787 fleet (or at least the first B787-9) will feature the All Black livery

© Air New Zealand (slide 46)

Further to the fleet news, in 2013 Air New Zealand will see 3 new A320s as well as 2 ATR 72-600s and over the next 3 years the fleet additions will look like this

© Air New Zealand (from slide 89)

During this time Air New Zealand expect the B747 fleet to have been fully retired by 2014, with the B737 & B767 fleet retired by 2015, although the B767 exit is under review.  So by 2016 the Air New Zealand long haul fleet will comprise B787 & B777 aircraft while the short haul jet fleet will be all A320 

Air New Zealand are also looking at focusing on the following

• B787 entry into service
• B777-200 upgrades
• Lounge upgrades (CHC, AKL, LAX)
• New ATR72-600s on regional + upgraded existing 72-500s
• Improved check-in experience
• Seamless journeys through our integrated network

NZ in the money + fleet news

Profit News
Air New Zealand have reported a strong half year interim profit with normalised earnings to 31-December-2012 up 300% on the previous year.

Earnings pre-tax were $139M NZD up from $33M NZD in the previous year, with normalised after tax profit of $100M NZD up $62M on the previous year.

Air New Zealand's media release lists the following

Key points:

• Normalised earnings¹ before taxation of $139 million, up more than 300 percent

• Statutory net profit after taxation of $100 million, up $62 million

• Operating revenue of $2.4 billion, up 3.4 percent

• Operating cash flow more than doubles to $343 million

• Gearing improves by 4.3 percentage points to 41.8 percent

• Fully imputed interim dividend of 3.0 cps, a 50 percent increase

Air New Zealand have credited the strong program of change they have been implementing in the past year or two as the reason for the strong profit result.  This includes the Seats to Suit fare structure on trans-Tasman and Pacific Island routes, as well as the alliance with Virgin Australia on trans-Tasman and domestic Australian and New Zealand routes.  Air New Zealand's cargo business has also grown and seen a 9% boost to revenue during the period. Air New Zealand have also seamlessly changed CEO's at the end of 2012

“We have a new leadership team with deep industry experience fused with fresh perspectives from world class leaders who have joined us from other sectors. The focus and energy within Air New Zealand is quite remarkable.  We are stepping it up in all areas of the business to drive improved operational and financial performance while further enhancing our award-winning customer experience,” Mr Luxon says.

Fleet News
Air New Zealand are confidant of the future and one thing this allows Air New Zealand to do is to grow, with the company announcing it will introduce two new leased Boeing 777-319ER aircraft to the fleet before the end of 2014.  These aircraft will be for expansion with the Boeing 787-9 still expected to begin entering the fleet from 2014.

Although when looking at the aircraft capital commitments slide from the Air New Zealand 2013 Interim Result Analyst Presentation you can see the B773ER deliveries will occur one before 30-June-2014 and one after 1-July-2014, while it appears the B789 deliveries wont happen until after 1-July-2014, despite Boeing confirming EIS is currently on track to happen in mid 2014.  You will also notice the A320 deliveries ramp up with 4 delivered in FY14 & 3 in FY15, while the AT76 deliveries continue to plod along at 1 per year

Air New Zealand 2013 Interim Result Analyst Presentation © Air New Zealand 2013

You can read the full press release from Air New Zealand HERE or read any of the documents that Air New Zealand supplied to the New Zealand Stock Exchange (including the above mentioned presentation) HERE

Qantas Group makes minor fleet purchase change

Qantas have trimmed their order for Boeing 787-8s for Jetstar to 14 frames, down by 1, while at the same time announcing a renewed domestic push with the leasing of 5 more Boeing 717s and the purchase of 3 more Bombardier Q400 aircraft.

On top of the 14 787s remaining on order for Jetstar, Qantas retains the option to buy up to 50 more Dreamliners in either the 787-8 or stretched 787-9 variant for delivery from 2016, to be shared between the Jetstar and Qantas fleets.

The new domestic aircraft are tipped for work in the mining rich regions of Queensland and Western Australia on both FIFO and RPT services.

In what is a clear competitve response to the announcement by Virgin Australia it is seeking to grow its regional airline portfolio through the acquisition of Skywest, the additional Boeing 717s and Bombardier Q400s will support Qantas’s defensive position on thinner regional routes, particularly in Western Australia. Qantas’s existing 717 fleet is operated for QantasLink by Cobham.

Read more on these fleet announcements from either Australian Aviation HERE or Australian Business Traveller HERE

Qantas can 787-9!

Qantas have sensationally cancelled their firm order for 35 Boeing 787-9s, in a bid to reign in costs as part of its fleet restructure.

Fifty B787-9 options and purchase rights will be retained and brought forward by almost two years, available for delivery from 2016" the airline said in a statement.

Jetstar will still receive their 15 Boeing 787-8s which will enable the return of the A330 fleet back to Qantas which will enable them to replace their aging domestic B767 fleet.

Read more about the announcement and its impact on the Qantas fleet through Australian Business Traveller (ausbt.com.au) HERE