DavidByrne wrote:I’ve been thinking about NZ’s capacity shortage and what can be done. I assume it’s almost a given that quickly getting your hands on an A320 or 321 NEO would be pretty much impossible, and likewise a 789 (especially a GE-powered one, which is presumably what NZ needs for the better fuel consumption). That just leaves the 77W, of which there may be some available.
How many? Well, one to replace the Wamos A330, a second to liberate a 789 and allow more frequency on ORD and JFK, surely a priority for the carrier. And perhaps a third for elsewhere on the network, noting that A320/321 routes are also constrained by a lack of spare capacity.
Even a fleet of 10 77Ws and 14 789s only makes a fleet of 24 wide bodies, where pre-covid it numbered 29-30 - still a 20% reduction. Getting back to pre-covid levels of activity seems to be very far in the future.
Pretty sure there are 77Ws available from EK, SQ, CX, EY, NH or previously operated by those carriers, maybe back to BR even?
Several wide bodies were freed up with dropped routes
LHR 2, given LAX has been a max of 10 weekly rather
EZE 1.5 in NW given 5 weekly
RAR-LAX, RAR-SYD effectively make that an additional 0.5,
SYD 1 had a double banger 77E 0700 and 1600 so ,MEL 0.5 had a 77E in the afternoon which returned to late to depart again that evening, that where I thought the 0015 arrival from SYD could have done PER at 0200 saving the aircraft parking overnight at PER.
Looking ahead to NW23/24 let’s see what fits with the current fleet
77W x7
LAX x7 2 aircraft
SFO x5 1.5
IAH x7 2
SIN x7 1
PPT x2 .5
789 code 2 x5
JFK x7 2
ORD x7 2
YVR x3 1
Code 1 x9
PVG x7 2
HKG x7 1
NRT x7 1
PER x7 1
ICN x4 .5
TPE x3 .5
YVR x4 1
HNL x3 .5
PPT x1
Leaves around 1.5 to increase maybe CHC-SIN/PER or a little more Tasman flying. Nothing announced re JFK/ORD just a bit of a hunch.
Atleast 3x 77W available during the day for short haul to SYD/MEL/BNE, SIN needs to rotate somewhere, plus at least 3x 789 to MEL/SYD/NAN/RAR/APW/TBU.
NAN/RAR//APW/TBU share 1 aircraft depending on the day
321
AKL-SYD x21 2 ( 1 overnight SYD)
AKL-MEL x14 1.5 (1 overnight MEL)
AKL-BNE x13 2 (1 on Saturday)
AKL-OOL x7 .5
AKL-RAR x4 (overnight service with OOL aircraft)
AKL-APW x3 (alternate days to RAR overnight service)
AKL-ADL x5
AKL-NAN (AM, days 789 not operating)
AKL-TBU x4 overnight
AKL-NOU x3
Leaves A320s for CHC/WLG/ZQN/IUE/HBA, probably some AKL flying instead of A321s.
CHC-SYD x11
CHC-MEL x7
CHC-BNE x7
CHC-OOL x3
WLG-SYD x12
WLG-MEL x7
WLG-BNE x7
WLG-OOL x2
ZQN-SYD x7
ZQN-MEL x 5
ZQN-BNE x 5
AKL-IUE x2
AKL-HBA x3
Ok that’s all a bit of a mess, particularly the narrow bodies, some of the A320/321 might be a bit mixed between ports.