I was looking on FR24 and found NZ1 flying from LHR-LAX, a 777, why is it doing this? Is it a charter, ferry, connection flight? What is it?


Flight:
https://fr24.com/ANZ1/1101e751

NZ1 is a regular passenger service flown daily by AirNZ. It provides a direct flight between NZ and the UK with LAX as the regular stopover. Apparently AirNZ is quite popular on the route and carries a lot of customers solely between LHR and LAX, but not on to AKL where the flight terminates.

Because that is the way it was dispatched......

JBusworth wrote:

NZ1 is a regular passenger service flown daily by AirNZ. It provides a direct flight between NZ and the UK with LAX as the regular stopover. Apparently AirNZ is quite popular on the route and carries a lot of customers solely between LHR and LAX, but not on to AKL where the flight terminates.

Ah ok. I thought it was a charter or something

AKL is about half way around the world from LHR so it really makes no difference in flight times if NZ flies via the US or Asia. It chooses US.

Basically to serve London, although I would have to imagine that New Zealanders bound for London would usually get routed onto CX at HKG to get to LHR to avoid the visa fee (even though New Zealand is a visa waiver country). For a long time, the route was AKL-LAX-LHR-HKG-AKL as a round-the-world flight.

In practice, LAX to LHR on Air New Zealand is generally done as a separate fifth freedom service taking advantage of open skies agreements. Does Air New Zealand have a crew base in London or Los Angeles?

I've flown it, ANZ is *amazing*

aemoreira1981 wrote:

Basically to serve London, although I would have to imagine that New Zealanders bound for London would usually get routed onto CX at HKG to get to LHR to avoid the visa fee (even though New Zealand is a visa waiver country). For a long time, the route was AKL-LAX-LHR-HKG-AKL as a round-the-world flight.

In practice, LAX to LHR on Air New Zealand is generally done as a separate fifth freedom service taking advantage of open skies agreements. Does Air New Zealand have a crew base in London or Los Angeles?

For a while NZ flew both AKL-HKG-LHR and AKL-LAX-LHR. Going through HKG is a little shorter, but LAX is more popular. I believe NZ has special customs and immigration waivers at LAX.

aemoreira1981 wrote:

Does Air New Zealand have a crew base in London or Los Angeles?

My understanding is NZ has a flight cew base in LA, and a cabin crew base in London.

Since Air New Zealand has flown AKL-LAX-LHR with traffic rights to carry pax solely between LAX and LHR for many years (going back IIRC to the days they flew DC-10s on the route, perhaps even before then), I have wondered... does BA and/or any U.S. based airline have Fifth Freedom rights elsewhere as quid pro quo, of which I am unaware?

aemoreira1981 wrote:

Basically to serve London, although I would have to imagine that New Zealanders bound for London would usually get routed onto CX at HKG to get to LHR to avoid the visa fee (even though New Zealand is a visa waiver country). For a long time, the route was AKL-LAX-LHR-HKG-AKL as a round-the-world flight.

In practice, LAX to LHR on Air New Zealand is generally done as a separate fifth freedom service taking advantage of open skies agreements. Does Air New Zealand have a crew base in London or Los Angeles?

I have a couple of questions? You state "For a long time", so when was this because I never knew TE/NZ operated a round the world flight. There is nothing in the NZ history on their web site about this service.

The first service to London (LGW) didn't start until 1982 and it was via PPT/LAX and it wasn't a daily flight, I'm thinking 4-5 times weekly. Once the 742 arrived the service between LAX-AKL became non-stop and there was one weekly AKL-FRA via DFW.

Nope LHR not LGW

TWA902fly wrote:

I may be wrong... but for some reason I remember the HKG flight operating AKL-HKG-LGW... not LHR, but can’t find any historic timetables online. Anyone have any more info?

You are correct service was to LGW and not LHR.

I may be wrong... but for some reason I remember the HKG flight operating AKL-HKG-LGW... not LHR, but can’t find any historic timetables online. Anyone have any more info?

JBusworth wrote:

NZ1 is a regular passenger service flown daily by AirNZ. It provides a direct flight between NZ and the UK with LAX as the regular stopover. Apparently AirNZ is quite popular on the route and carries a lot of customers solely between LHR and LAX, but not on to AKL where the flight terminates.

Flew it myself from LAX to LHR in 2011 when it was still a 744...MUCH better service than I received on UA on the reverse.

aemoreira1981 wrote:

Basically to serve London, although I would have to imagine that New Zealanders bound for London would usually get routed onto CX at HKG to get to LHR to avoid the visa fee (even though New Zealand is a visa waiver country). For a long time, the route was AKL-LAX-LHR-HKG-AKL as a round-the-world flight.

In practice, LAX to LHR on Air New Zealand is generally done as a separate fifth freedom service taking advantage of open skies agreements. Does Air New Zealand have a crew base in London or Los Angeles?

I have a couple of questions? You state "For a long time", so when was this because I never knew TE/NZ operated a round the world flight, although it make sense. There is nothing in the NZ history on their web site about this service. Was the flight numbers 1/2?

The first service to London (LGW) didn't start until 1982 and it was via PPT/LAX and it wasn't a daily flight, I'm thinking 4-5 times weekly. Once the 742 arrived the service between LAX-AKL became non-stop and there was one weekly AKL-FRA via DFW.[/quote]

Speaking of fifth freedoms; NZ used to have 5th freedom to these airports from LAX: PPT, RAR, LGW later LHR, SYD, NAN, and of course APW.

Tango-Bravo wrote:

Since Air New Zealand has flown AKL-LAX-LHR with traffic rights to carry pax solely between LAX and LHR for many years (going back IIRC to the days they flew DC-10s on the route, perhaps even before then), I have wondered... does BA and/or any U.S. based airline have Fifth Freedom rights elsewhere as quid pro quo, of which I am unaware?

There are many traffic rights that are not actually used any more. Tokyo Narita was at one time a significant fifth-freedom type hub for US-based airlines, with flights to many destinations in South East Asia, but almost all of these have gone now, killed off by improving aircraft range which has permitted nonstop flights to these destinations from the USA, and significant competition from other carriers which are perceived locally as better value (either lower fares, or higher onboard standards).

You mention BA. They famously still do LHR-SIN-SYD, with full traffic rights, and also have a vast selection of rights they no longer exercise but could reinstate if they wanted to - just in the Australian market they have rights across HKG and BKK, for example. They still fly from London to these places, and will sell tickets to Australia via them, with onward connections on Cathay Pacific or Qantas.
Qantas have just reinstated SIN-LHR, and suspended DXB-LHR as fifth freedom add-ons to their flights from Australia.

Because New Zealand doesn't have a vast population, both BA and US airlines (well, Delta, - UA/AA/HA have nonstops) have chosen to serve it by handing passengers over to partner airlines at some point in recent years rather than exercise fifth freedom rights which probably still exist but are dormant.

Andy you do realize AA, HA and UA serve AKL.

They also did LAX-FRA until 2000/2001 with a 744.

Flew it back in 2000. Long before the HKG option. Actually that was SYD-LAX-AKL (connected onto NZ1).

910A wrote:

Andy you do realize AA, HA and UA serve AKL.

Thanks for the correction. Post amended to make it clear that only Delta use partner airlines to serve New Zealand.

NZ keeps trying to advertise their LAX-LHR service to me on Facebook ads. I would be much more likely to use their IAH-AKL flight as I live a couple of hundred miles southwest of Houston. I thought Facebook was supposed to know my location to better fine tune my ads. I might be interested in the LAX-LHR flight if I lived near Los Angeles, but it's not worthwhile to fly 1600 miles the wrong direction to catch that flight.

I’m actually flying this route next month and compared to the competitors this flight has me sold. I paid $495RT LAX-LHR and know I’m goimg to have great service and an awesome experience with NZ!

HKG-LHR was made possible when NZ picked up additional LHR slots so that it was effectively double daily AKL-LHR, once via LAX and once via HKG and offering round-the-world service. Lasted a few years. NZ was the only Star Alliance carrier on HKG-LHR and since HKG-LHR was dropped there is no Star Alliance presence on this route and NZ now has an out-of-alliance arrangement with CX.. Both airlines serve HKG from AKL daily year round with additional flights peak season and also HKG-CHC flown by CX. LAX-LHR remains one of only two long haul one-stop services for NZ (the other is AKL-RAR-LAX). AFAIK all other NZ long haul flights are non-stop point to point services.

Bjm0517 wrote:

I was looking on FR24 and found NZ1 flying from LHR-LAX, a 777, why is it doing this? Is it a charter, ferry, connection flight? What is it?


Flight:
https://fr24.com/ANZ1/1101e751

Not to be a twit...which admittedly I am...if you were on FR24 you could have searched FR24 for NZ1 and looked at the past history of the flight and learned that it is a regularly-scheduled flight.

Just for kicks, click on this link, if you haven't already figured it out: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/nz1

A few years back I was outside the LAS (Las Vegas) perimeter fence at the "famous" photography spot alongside a runway when NZ1 and NZ2 passed each other at altitude. It was pretty cool to see.

910A wrote:

aemoreira1981 wrote:

Basically to serve London, although I would have to imagine that New Zealanders bound for London would usually get routed onto CX at HKG to get to LHR to avoid the visa fee (even though New Zealand is a visa waiver country). For a long time, the route was AKL-LAX-LHR-HKG-AKL as a round-the-world flight.

In practice, LAX to LHR on Air New Zealand is generally done as a separate fifth freedom service taking advantage of open skies agreements. Does Air New Zealand have a crew base in London or Los Angeles?

I have a couple of questions? You state "For a long time", so when was this because I never knew TE/NZ operated a round the world flight, although it make sense. There is nothing in the NZ history on their web site about this service. Was the flight numbers 1/2?

The first service to London (LGW) didn't start until 1982 and it was via PPT/LAX and it wasn't a daily flight, I'm thinking 4-5 times weekly. Once the 742 arrived the service between LAX-AKL became non-stop and there was one weekly AKL-FRA via DFW.

Speaking of fifth freedoms; NZ used to have 5th freedom to these airports from LAX: PPT, RAR, LGW later LHR, SYD, NAN, and of course APW.[/quote]

Before the arrival of the 744's, NZ/TE also flew AKL-PPT-DFW-LGW alongside the service from LAX. It lasted about a year I think.

aemoreira1981 wrote:

Basically to serve London, although I would have to imagine that New Zealanders bound for London would usually get routed onto CX at HKG to get to LHR to avoid the visa fee (even though New Zealand is a visa waiver country). For a long time, the route was AKL-LAX-LHR-HKG-AKL as a round-the-world flight.

In practice, LAX to LHR on Air New Zealand is generally done as a separate fifth freedom service taking advantage of open skies agreements. Does Air New Zealand have a crew base in London or Los Angeles?

NZ have a cabin crew base in London, I believe tech Crew fly all the way through from LHR.

NZ has a reasonably strong brand on this route- a boutique product rather more discrete for certain B/C grade Hollywood types who prefer the premium yet lay back service to the UA/AA/BA giants on this route.

aemoreira1981 wrote:

Basically to serve London, although I would have to imagine that New Zealanders bound for London would usually get routed onto CX at HKG to get to LHR to avoid the visa fee (even though New Zealand is a visa waiver country). For a long time, the route was AKL-LAX-LHR-HKG-AKL as a round-the-world flight.

NZ has an joint venture with CX and SQ, so offer pretty good deals to LHR via SIN & HKG, its often double the price to fly AKL-LAX-LHR on NZ than it is via Asia.

There is an still an market out there that is happy to 'pay the extra' just to fly NZ metal the whole way, e.g. you could do AKL-LHR via the Middle East or Asia for $1500 return or $2500 on NZ via LAX.

TWA902fly wrote:

I may be wrong... but for some reason I remember the HKG flight operating AKL-HKG-LGW... not LHR, but can’t find any historic timetables online. Anyone have any more info?

No, LHR was definitely the terminating point for both the flights via LAX and HKG. They were promoting themselves as the only airline with round-world service.

aemoreira1981 wrote:

... For a long time, the route was AKL-LAX-LHR-HKG-AKL as a round-the-world flight...

Technically it wasn't a single RTW service. From memory, HKG was never a daily service unlike LAX and flight numbers and equipment were different. HKG I believe used 777-200ER whilst LAX was 747/777-300ER

smi0006 wrote:

NZ have a cabin crew base in London, I believe tech Crew fly all the way through from LHR.

NZ has a reasonably strong brand on this route- a boutique product rather more discrete for certain B/C grade Hollywood types who prefer the premium yet lay back service to the UA/AA/BA giants on this route.

Their London crew Base would only operate as far as LAX. They used to like the HKG trips as layovers were longer and also, no doubt, as a change of scenery from "L.A. again!"

Their brand is surprisingly strong on that route considering their small operation in the UK. They do indeed regularly get the Hollywood types - my friend used to fly for them and would regularly meet familiar faces.

They are rarely the cheapest in my experience to both LAX and on to AKL from London; presumably they can make the most money on passengers originating in LAX and allow everyone else to slog it out on the Kangaroo route via Asia and the Middle East. If people want the Kiwi experience on their flight, NZ are prepared to make them pay a premium for it.

Mark

Huge cultural ties between UK and New Zealand exist, much like Australia.

The flight has to stop somewhere, so if they can fill LAX-LHR-LAX up with O&D, so be it.

Tango-Bravo wrote:

Since Air New Zealand has flown AKL-LAX-LHR with traffic rights to carry pax solely between LAX and LHR for many years (going back IIRC to the days they flew DC-10s on the route, perhaps even before then), I have wondered... does BA and/or any U.S. based airline have Fifth Freedom rights elsewhere as quid pro quo, of which I am unaware?

QF also have dormant rights for UK-US traffic.

Brucekn wrote:

aemoreira1981 wrote:

Does Air New Zealand have a crew base in London or Los Angeles?

My understanding is NZ has a flight cew base in LA, and a cabin crew base in London.

Regular user of this route and I work with a woman who used to work this flight. She’s now a passenger service agent (like me) after NZ had redundancies after scrapping HKG.

Flight Deck are AKL based. It is around a 10 day trip for them. Cabin crew are LHR based and only operate to/from Los Angeles. They used to do HKG, but that was scrapped.

XAM2175 wrote:

Tango-Bravo wrote:

Since Air New Zealand has flown AKL-LAX-LHR with traffic rights to carry pax solely between LAX and LHR for many years (going back IIRC to the days they flew DC-10s on the route, perhaps even before then), I have wondered... does BA and/or any U.S. based airline have Fifth Freedom rights elsewhere as quid pro quo, of which I am unaware?

QF also have dormant rights for UK-US traffic.

Australia is about 1300 miles west of New Zealand. This makes Australia significantly closer to LHR on one stop flights traveling to the west rather than the east. Unless a businessman flying from Australia to London has the need to make a stop in the US, it is cheaper to fly the Kangaroo route to get to London.

Air New Zealand were flying DC10s LAX-LHR for BA on a 1970s JV long before they operated under their own ops, and had to move to Gatters until LHR was re-opened to newcomers from 1991.

flyingclrs727 wrote:

Australia is about 1300 miles west of New Zealand. This makes Australia significantly closer to LHR on one stop flights traveling to the west rather than the east. Unless a businessman flying from Australia to London has the need to make a stop in the US, it is cheaper to fly the Kangaroo route to get to London.

Yes.

I mean they haven't exercised the rights since the mid-70s - I think it's fairly obvious the economics weren't sorted The current LAX-JFK-LAX is the leftover from what used to be the Southern Cross Route that was roughly SYD-HNL-SFO/LAX-JFK-LHR.

910A wrote:

I have a couple of questions? You state "For a long time", so when was this because I never knew TE/NZ operated a round the world flight, although it make sense. There is nothing in the NZ history on their web site about this service. Was the flight numbers 1/2?
The first service to London (LGW) didn't start until 1982 and it was via PPT/LAX and it wasn't a daily flight, I'm thinking 4-5 times weekly. Once the 742 arrived the service between LAX-AKL became non-stop and there was one weekly AKL-FRA via DFW.

[/quote]

The Air NZ London service goes right back to when the Pacific route was part of BA's round the world flight pattern.
When BA gave up flying over the Pacific, Air NZ took over the AKL-LAX sector and then later extended to LGW (not LHR) as TE1/2 (NZ was then the code for domestic flights).
They also called at PPT westbound and HNL eastbound.
I travelled a couple of times this way in the 1980s - it's very strange heading for NZ from London by first flying over Greenland!
Frequency in the 1980s was only 3 times weekly, with the BA flight to AKL via Asia/Australia on other days..
Transit at LAX was primitive, everyone being herded into a concrete box where the only facility was a drinks cart accepting only US$ in cash!
I suspect US immigration restrictions for transit passengers make the through routeing less popular today, but I think NZ does well on the individual sectors.

XAM2175 wrote:

Tango-Bravo wrote:

Since Air New Zealand has flown AKL-LAX-LHR with traffic rights to carry pax solely between LAX and LHR for many years (going back IIRC to the days they flew DC-10s on the route, perhaps even before then), I have wondered... does BA and/or any U.S. based airline have Fifth Freedom rights elsewhere as quid pro quo, of which I am unaware?

QF also have dormant rights for UK-US traffic.

was it not a case of one hand washing the other (at the time)? I am pretty sure you could book BA on AU-NZ many a moon ago.....

Tango-Bravo wrote:

Since Air New Zealand has flown AKL-LAX-LHR with traffic rights to carry pax solely between LAX and LHR for many years (going back IIRC to the days they flew DC-10s on the route, perhaps even before then), I have wondered... does BA and/or any U.S. based airline have Fifth Freedom rights elsewhere as quid pro quo, of which I am unaware?

Not really quid pro quo but fifth freedom flying is definitely a thing.

The biggest BA fifth freedom flight is almost definitely SIN-SYD. They also have a bunch of tag-ons for flights in the Caribbean (I have no idea how many have traffic rights)

I believe KU still has rights for JFK-LHR but chooses not to use them since they were sued for discrimination for not accepting Israeli passports and chose to two separate nonstops and since Israelis aren't admissible to Kuwait, it gets around the problem.

Air India flies from LHR to EWR.

Other major fifth freedom flights leaving the US would be EK flying JFK-MXP and EWR-ATH, CX flies JFK-YVR, SQ does JFK-FRA. I don't remember if JJ still flies JFK-YYZ (interesting to get a 777 on such a short flight). CA has just started IAH-PTY. (I'm sure I missed a few)

For USA based airlines, the NW and later DL as well as the UA hub at NRT comes to mind too. Though those are mostly dead due to local competition and preference for non-stop flights.

There is a fifth freedom thread on the travel subforum to get a good idea, there's still a bunch of them out there. EK in particular does a ton.

cougar15 wrote:

was it not a case of one hand washing the other (at the time)? I am pretty sure you could book BA on AU-NZ many a moon ago.....

QF and BA definitely did have a fairly close relationship for a long time - it grew out of the original joint arrangement between Imperial Airways and Qantas when the Kangaroo Route was first established and probably reached its peak when BA was one of the major stake-holders in the newly-privatised QF.

It is worth noting that fifth-freedoms (and all others too) are arranged between governments, not airlines - although some governments may arrange their bilateral agreements to favour a certain airline or group thereof, or restrict them to certain ports. Any Australian airline and not just QF, for example, may take advantage of fifth-freedoms beyond Hong Kong, but there is an overall capacity cap imposed by the HK government.

Many of these freedoms have their routes in technical necessity too, and were less commercially difficult when international airfares were less competitive, and that's why only a handful are left and they're the ones that are either still technically necessary or that pay their way.

But that long-winded answer aside, BA did indeed serve New Zealand via Australia for a time (though I can't confirm their traffic rights). Interesting to note that when G-BDXH was involved in the ash-cloud incident over Indonesia in 1982 it was flying as BA9 LHR-AKL with stops in BOM, MAA, KUL, PER, and MEL.

Obviously the QF-EK tie-up trimmed the BA-QF partnership pretty hard but it's still there - most of the QF codes came off BA flights but a lot of QF flights kept their BA codes; I'm flying QF51 BNE-SIN in a couple of weeks on a BA code to connect with BA12.

Bjm0517 wrote:

JBusworth wrote:

NZ1 is a regular passenger service flown daily by AirNZ. It provides a direct flight between NZ and the UK with LAX as the regular stopover. Apparently AirNZ is quite popular on the route and carries a lot of customers solely between LHR and LAX, but not on to AKL where the flight terminates.

Ah ok. I thought it was a charter or something

Charter flights operate under a 6000 to 7000 flight number and as for NZ1 in general, lower the number, the more “prestigious” the flight route is for the for the airline.

EK413

Because if they try to do LHR-AKL non-stop they'll run out of fuel somewhere over the Pacific.

XAM2175 wrote:

flyingclrs727 wrote:

Australia is about 1300 miles west of New Zealand. This makes Australia significantly closer to LHR on one stop flights traveling to the west rather than the east. Unless a businessman flying from Australia to London has the need to make a stop in the US, it is cheaper to fly the Kangaroo route to get to London.

Yes.

I mean they haven't exercised the rights since the mid-70s - I think it's fairly obvious the economics weren't sorted The current LAX-JFK-LAX is the leftover from what used to be the Southern Cross Route that was roughly SYD-HNL-SFO/LAX-JFK-LHR.

Just a pedantic point, QF has never operated LAX-JFK-LHR, the route was SFO-JFK-LHR which was closed before QF had rights to LAX. I do not know if those two points are related.

Gemuser

Is NZ 1/2 the longest flight in the world?

Motorhussy wrote:

Is NZ 1/2 the longest flight in the world?

According to the ever-reliable Wikipedia, yes it is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_f ... ct_flights

Years ago (1999-2001) I was doing lots of AKL travel from LA. If memory serves,

all 744s
LHR - LAX - AKL, NZ 1/2 daily
FRA - LAX - NAN - AKL NZ 5/6 I believe 3 days a week
LAX - AKL can't recall the flight numbers and I think less than daily
LAX - SYD I think NZ 15/16 daily.
plus at least one 767 flight a day to the South Pacific islands, PPT, RAR, HNL, APW

SIN-BCN-GRU was longer until SQ cut it last year (or 2016?).

Before their JV on the kangaroo route from the late 1990s BA/QF started codesharing on LAX-AKL to offer one-stop through service to New Zealand - BA998/BA999 was QF100/QF101 - although the codeshare only covered AKL even though the QF flight operated LAX-AKL-MEL.

FlyCaledonian wrote:

Before their JV on the kangaroo route from the late 1990s BA/QF started codesharing on LAX-AKL to offer one-stop through service to New Zealand - BA998/BA999 was QF100/QF101 - although the codeshare only covered AKL even though the QF flight operated LAX-AKL-MEL.

Does that fit in with my experience?

On a staff ticket from my father, in the late 1960's I flew AKI-NAN on a BOAC flight and we were given dinner in NAN. I then joined a BOAC flight arriving from SYD which would fly on to HNL-SF0-JFK and finally LHR.

We had a long layover at SFO (because of arrival times at JFK) and were each given a motel room and an excellent dinner at a very good motel at SF airport.

Coming back, LHR to AKL, we didn't get any bonus hotels.

mariner

XAM2175 wrote:

flyingclrs727 wrote:

Australia is about 1300 miles west of New Zealand. This makes Australia significantly closer to LHR on one stop flights traveling to the west rather than the east. Unless a businessman flying from Australia to London has the need to make a stop in the US, it is cheaper to fly the Kangaroo route to get to London.

Yes.

I mean they haven't exercised the rights since the mid-70s - I think it's fairly obvious the economics weren't sorted The current LAX-JFK-LAX is the leftover from what used to be the Southern Cross Route that was roughly SYD-HNL-SFO/LAX-JFK-LHR.

The other leftover from that route is that SYD-HNL-SYD is still QF3/4 to this day. QF1/2 was SYD-LHR via SIN and points onward and QF3/4 was SYD-LHR via HNL etc.