What interests me is that the 345 is gonna run the MEL-AKL flight (as is already the case from SYD), while a 773 remains at MEL. To me this makes VERY little sense... the 773 would be cheaper to fly and could carry more cargo than the 345. Why not operated just 773/ERs to NZ and let the direct SYD/MEL-DXB 345s rest?
The only plausable reason I can think of is that EK wanna keep the cycles down on the 777s as they have more stopovers on the way home (BKK/SIN etc)...
What do you guys think???