[cwoodward]

Thai has operated the Auckland – Bangkok route for the past thirty years until Covid paused it.
They advise that it will be back in June
ANZ previously focused on the mentioned ‘money centres’…. and closed the LHR route -seemingly it didn’t work for them possibly for the lack tourist traffic. Bangkok has plenty.
For me a purely academic discussion but interesting points of view as always.

1 user thanked author for this post.

AndrewinHK

[sparkyflier]

MarvivJ

Re San Fran and Houston could they codeshare with UA? I would rank SF higher than IAH and suspect all the energy firms in Houston have agreements with both UA and BA. Re Vancouver would AC be happy to codeshare on an NZ operated flight? And how would the passenger experience be at YVR versus a US airport re ESTAs etc?

And re Panama City if you look at my post to start and commence this discussion you would see I have suggested it already and think it would be a no-brainer!

For years on this forum I have said BA should fly to PTY at least 3-4 daily using 787/772 and would have no problem filling them up – in both business and economy. Panama is a financial centre as well as a major shipping centre – something both London and Panama City share.

And many carriers now fly there from Europe:-

KLM -daily 77W
Turkish daily 77W/789
IB – daily A330
Air Europa 5 x weekly 787
AF – 5 x weekly 772

Yet London is the market Panama wants a direct route too. BA will not ply it as they let IB take it but many in Latin America loath IB and prefer AF/KL and use them to connect to.. London.

So If NZ launched AKL-PTY-LHR-PTY-AKL they would capture:-

UK – Panama traffic
UK -central and south American traffic (and vice versa)as they would codeshare with COPA, a Star Alliance hub with a very extensive network across ALL of the Americas, but in this instance connecting to countries in central America, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador for example – markets with no direct flights to London (except Avianca but that does not have a great name in that region any more). Many of these countries also no longer need a Visa to enter UK.
Traffic arguably from all of the Americas from COPA’s routes to NZ, Oz, Asia and Oceania, and vice versa..
Plus UK/NZ traffic!

There are only I think 10 flights a day from Latin America to Oz/NZ using Latam 787s or QF 787 – and these are to Santiago in deep South America.

IMO would be a lucrative and popular route for a multitude of reasons and on all legs.

1 user thanked author for this post.

tomyam42

[AndrewinHK]

I think the discussion has veered far into a realm of the unrealistic, to suggest Auckland-Panama-LHR, it’s great to be creative but this is a totally bizarre and a never ever going to happen suggestion. How many point to point travellers do you suppose travel from Auckland to Panama? BA know the route through exposure via IB, if that route made commercial sense for them they would launch it, BA have plenty of exposure via Miami with AA, BA has so much capacity to MIA, double daily a380 plus AA double daily rotation, far exceeding capacity by AF/KLM and others.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Bullfrog

[MarcusGB]

The idea of anything landing at CGK, is frankly miraculous, with the state of their runway!!!

Pre Covid, I used to take Garuda ex LHR in Biz or 1st, to CGK, then down to Australia. The flights were always late at LHR, before they threatened to leave the UK (as Alex and others may well recall). LGW was their haunt before, but it was grossly unreliable at LHR.
KLM still serve CGK and DPS, flying on after SIN or KUL ex Amsterdam daily on 773-ER’s. Business cabins remains 2-2-2 though, which is not todays Business Class expectation, but they now have PE!

The runway at CGK is really atrocious. It was worse to take off on ex CGK on the 773-ER, wheels hitting the gaps on the runway – Banging, lockers opening, Galley itesm crash to the floor, much vibration.
Even with them starting unscheduled stops at Singapore ( at Jakarta there would be NO aircraft on the departure Boards going to LHR, it was only SIN that was shown, but it did fly on). I cannot see a Market into CGK for Air NZ.

I went through Bali en route to Sydney in Jan this year, and really later eve it was totally packed with so many Australia Bound Qantas + Virgin Australia (most on 738’s!), as well as Jetstar, Air Asia, and Garuda flights, several other low cost aircraft. Flights were to all Australian cities, it’s a saturated market. More Australians now fly to Bali than the reduced Thailand Services.

Air NZ currently fly to Singapore and i read they were to double that this year, but certainly linking in with SQ, who would then disperse onto a flight to / from AKL, would i think we very well utilised. With SQ’s network to Europe, many would have the opportunity to go onto NZ, with SQ also, and feed SQs routes to Europe. These are full as ever, and prices remain almost double to Asia, and £5,500 + ex UK down to Australia, as pre covid.
Fly from Europe, you can take £2,000 off that price.

We must all really be pleased to see that when Emirates pushed Air NZ to The Brink, flying aircraft onto Australian cities, then onto Auckland, has ceased!
Of course people would choose a long haul Aircraft A346’s A380’s between for a decent fare, and Air NZ was pushed even out of its local Pacific Market to Australia. They now run 789’s 777’s once more.
Around 5pm, all you saw there were 5 Emirates Huge Aircraft leaving back to Australia within an hr of each other. It was very sad.

It remains in a sort of Corner, or Cul de sac isolated down there still. Travellers go there as an end destination, but not through!

It is a wonderful Airline, great service, F & B, engaging staff, Modern fleet, comfortable cabins,and really deserves to thrive. It always was Unique and innovative (The “Space seats were an absolute treat for PE!!).
But i think to air on the side of Caution, and to protect its US and Asia bound profitable services, and the Australia and Pacific Market for now, would be a safer option, and consolidate once more.

4 users thanked author for this post.

Bullfrog, cwoodward, sparkyflier, AMcWhirter

[AMcWhirter]

[quote quote=1363483]Thai has operated the Auckland – Bangkok route for the past thirty years until Covid paused it.
They advise that it will be back in June
ANZ previously focused on the mentioned ‘money centres’…. and closed the LHR route -seemingly it didn’t work for them possibly for the lack tourist traffic. Bangkok has plenty.[/quote]

I like this idea of Air NZ routing LHR-BKK-AKL.

Of course Air NZ would need to obtain fifth freedom rights for LHR-BKK-LHR but I would have thought that a) assuming BA shows no desire to restart LHR-BKK and that b) Thailand wants more tourism than that ought not to be a problem. (Although BA may suddenly decide to restart LHR-BKK !)

Air NZ would face no difficulty in filling its aircraft just as Eva Air has found with LHR-BKK.

The interesting fact is that Bangkok is roughly located midway between London and Auckland so from an operational viewpoint it’s an ideal stopover.

Yes yield is an issue but that could be balanced out with high loads.

In any case what airlines say can always be overturned.

Some years ago (before its A380s entered service I think) LH was telling the media that it might have to axe Frankfurt-Bangkok because of the low yields caused by the Gulfies.

Then later, when one media asked why LH didn’t roster its A380 to BKK to cope with demand. an executive said it wouldn’t want to operate this prestige aircraft on what LH considered a low yield route.

In in 2022, as I have reported for Online news, LH will now operate its A380 MUC-BKK for the winter season !

(It has to be MUC-BKK rather than FRA-BKK because LH moved its A380 base to the Bavarian capital)

3 users thanked author for this post.

Bullfrog, MarcusGB, sparkyflier

[sparkyflier]

AndrewinHK -I suggest you did not read fully read my previous post. I am not advocating that an Auckland -Panama City standalone route would be viable, but I am saying that business and leisure traffic from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia wanting to go to places like Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador and connect at Auckland would easily fill enough seats to justify at least a 4 x weekly 789.

Furthermore there would be substantial demand from those places (as well as from Copa’s Caribbean network for example) willing to connect at Panama and Auckland to go to those countries in Asia/Pacific to sell their products and services or on holiday. And they would find that far more preferable than going all the way down to Santiago or have all the grief and agro of changing in USA.

And SQ would probably be happy to put their code on the flight.

Plus any through traffic to/from UK would be a bonus.

After all before Covid NZ launched a flight to Buenos Aires (not even a Star Alliance hub) which was pretty much standalone and to capture leisure traffic.

So I think NZ starting routes to PTY and GRU would be very viable indeed. And before Covid I think they were considering Bogota but with Avianca in BOG not being seen as an ideal hub I suspect that will not be on the table now that NZ has opened up.

Re Miami and changing planes there, well a former colleague used to go to Port of Spain 3-4 x a year, using BA from LGW but once the only option was via MIA on BA/AA, and he said “bloody never again, awful experience”. And he had Global Entry and a BA Gold member.

And re PTY-London demand, when I was in Panama years ago I met a travel agent socially and he said “Man, you would not believe how many people here want to fly to London, all these other airlines are filling their planes but most just want to go to London and not want to change -why does your airline not come here?”

1 user thanked author for this post.

tomyam42

[AndrewinHK]

Sparkyflyer, I commented on the point to point demand specifically, as the most glaring pillar of instability to the thesis this route would make sense. ANZ already has access to Panama via Houston and LAX. Going down the rabbit hole of hearing peoples individual viewpoints on a MIA transit experience to judge a routes viability, I prefer to focus on the traffic growth as a gauge. Everyone has famously complained about LAX yet it continues to grow rapidly as a transit hub, MIA is the gateway hub to Central and South America, passenger experience is of course important, but price/frequency are the driving force for most. I shall bring my comments back to ANZ, I think the business plan is to focus on higher yield population centres in Asia and US that it can serve nonstop, as a small carrier it doesn’t really have the luxury to splurge on a legacy route like LHR anymore, particularly when they can de risk and revenue share by routing traffic through HK/Houston and LAX.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Bullfrog

[cwoodward]

It seems not to concern ANZ overmuch who it partners or codeshares with outside of Star – (the joint- venture with OW Cathay) whether the destination is a star hub or a new unfashionable ( from Australasia) non star destination like Buenos Aires.
New Zealanders are an adventurous mob and my gripes centre on them giving up Europe and the horrible (doctors waiting room) seating that they have persisted with even when years out of date when installed on their 787s.
For me it is debatable as to whether or not they are well run but they have been profitable for the last few years prior 2020 as of course they should be with a growing and prosperous captive local market of 5+ million with no substantial comediator.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Bullfrog, sparkyflier

[DJH]

Travelled LHR to LAX and occasionally onward. It was an absolute joy. Tried other non stop airlines/options but do not match service, fares and overall package. Bring it on.

[jwhi56]

Finally someone has suggested
LHR-HNL. I think it would work
as at the moment to get there
you have to fly via a USA West
Coast airport & change aircraft.

[AMcWhirter]

[quote quote=1364073]Finally someone has suggested
LHR-HNL[/quote]

Yes that was Bath_VIP.

That was one route BOAC used to take Downunder decades ago using a Super VC-10. Mind you there were more stops at that time as one of the VC-10s flaws was lack of range to fly LHR-LAX non-stop.

Payload limits might be an issue (for LHR-HNL) but BA would also need to secure fifth-freedom rights from the USA for HNL-AKL.

[Holte75]

As someone who has worked in/around the UK aviation industry for +20yrs, including closely with ANZ – and who is married to a Kiwi, I would love to see them back in the UK, but sadly I don’t see it soon. At least there is some more capacity beginning to come back to the route, but overall the UK-NZ market still feels way under-served – my wife recently paid +£1500 for Economy in low/shoulder season & most ‘sensible’ carriers/routings were well above that.

In the last years pre-Covid I had the impression the ANZ management was more and more viewing the route as two separate commercial operations (AKL-LAX & LAX-LHR) both of which had to pay their way, with a lot less focus on the end to end AKL-LHR-AKL (or UK-NZ) market. So the combination of Covid and this outlook sadly killed off the through flight, as it had already done with the via HKG route (which I was lucky enough to fly on the inaugural ex LHR).

Personally I would love to see a resumption via YVR; as already suggested I think it’s probably the most under-served of the North American options, on both legs, but I think it’s a long shot.

In the long-term I think it’s possible we may not see a direct LHR-AKL service again we can see a non-stop one – and even then there would be a huge question-mark over whether the route could justify it, in the way QF feel LHR-SYD or MEL may be able to do so.

In the meantime I think codeshares and connections with the likes of VS, UA, CX et al are sadly likely to remain the only way to get to NZ on an ANZ aircraft from the UK. I hope I’m proved wrong.

3 users thanked author for this post.

MarcusGB, SenatorGold, AMcWhirter

[AMcWhirter]

[quote quote=1364110]I would love to see them back in the UK, but sadly I don’t see it soon.[/quote]

Let us hope so. Nothing in aviation is set in stone.

Sometimes a national airline believes that while a route may not be profitable it might be a route that needs to be operated for political, business or trade purposes.

Yes economy class fares to Auckland are indeed expensive right now.

One traveller I know was checking return fares MAN-AKL. A travel agent offered a routing via Singapore using SQ and NZ but the economy fare quoted was £2,000 +.

I realise January is still a busy month for travel DownUnder but it’s not peak.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Holte75

[MarkivJ]

Air Tahiti Nui has started Tahiti > Seattle > Paris flights as the Paris-Seattle leg is severely underserved. Same way, even though Air NZ is neither Skyteam or oneworld (the 2 big alliances in SEA), I wonder if a AKL – SEA – LHR would work, if the proposed YVR – LHR doesnt. Heaven knows the UK- Seattle market is always underserved.

[onajetplane]

I could actually see a London – Beijing or Shanghai stop – Auckland working. Pre-COVID – large diverse (Business/Education/Tourism/F&F) China – NZ market… and Beijing/Shanghai – London could easily absorb more capacity. I have used the transit stopover in Shanghai before spending 2nights/3days in the city without the need for any visa in advance etc. PEK airport would probably make the most sense to then codeshare with Air China for domestic and regional routes.

[Author]

Posts