Quote: "and you can forget NZ - period. I emailed Rob Fyfe and got this back -
''The challenge for us is the through traffic – we are at a material disadvantage flying a route where we don’t have a home market at one end of the route. The home market carriers at either end of the Hong Kong – UK market have a material advantage over Air New Zealand in terms of feed'' "
This implies three things:
(1) NZ have 5th freedom on LHR-HKG but can't compete with BA, VS, CX and QF and that their 5th freedom route LHR-LAX is doing better competing with BA, VS, and UA, and don't think they'd fare any better as the sole carrier on HKG-MAN;
(2) The demise of BD and the consequent weakening of LHR as a Star Alliance base has adversely impacted on NZ at LHR;
(3) They are not getting sufficient LHR-AKL traffic on this route, which is surprising as LHR-HKG-AKL should be less hassle than LHR-LAX-AKL because of the USA customs/border control requirements for pax in transit at LAX.