Air NZ Regional fleet announcement
 

Let the speculation begin...

Air New Zealand Fleet Announcement | infonews.co.nz New Zealand's local news community

Hmmm...what could it be? The Beech's haven't been the pot of gold that 'experts' promised..but whats out there..the smallest pressurised turbines are ATRs or Q400s still in production...? The recruitment is being clawed off the Link carriers and done by Auckland..could it be the whole link network is taken over by the mothership?

Surely they will just rationalise the whole fleet into Dash 8 Q300's and Q400's. Merge the whole lot together and have one type to train people on with one recruitment process and one maintenance type. Or is that to simple ??

AH
 

You mean like when they had the Friendships.....:E

I'm with AH on this one, get the smaller 100/200 Dash 8s (there I said it, DASH 8:eek:) for Eagle, and the Q400's for Mt Chook and be done with it. Pretty sure the 300 and 400 are not a common type rating but perhaps someone in the know could confirm?

Whatever, it'll be interesting to see what comes of it.

My bet.

Severe rationalisation of the 3 businesses. Duplication removed with maint, crewing, flight ops, admin etc maybe even all under 1 AOC. The fleet types will remain.

This has been Shambletons project since leaving Air Nelson.

^^^ I'm with waren

Cook / Nelson / Eagle to get wrapped up and rolled up into one single entity, lots of duplicated and triplicated jobs to get removed. The writing's been on the wall for years now

They will go for DHC6-400's

Yesterday's technology tomorrow.
They are gonna bring back the EMB110 :}

Maybe just more ATRs?
 

I'll go with the new ATRs. I think the stuff article covers it fairly well.

The ATR runs rings around the Q400 from a cost point of view especially in NZ where the relatively short average sector length doesn't allow the Q400 to employ it's full potential.

As for the unification of the three link operators, I reckon that's a possibility but not in the near future.

The common type? I don't think that's about to happen either. The Dash 8 100, 200 & 300 are out of production, plus they're old technology, I heard that some of the Air Nelson guys considered their old Saab 340s to be a generation ahead of the Dash 8 technology wise.

My money is on the announcement being new generation ATRs.

I heard a while back there was a plan for 6 extra ATR's, in part to cover CHC-WLG sector as it is too short for the A320. However I don't see much point in only getting 6 and having a split fleet so maybe 17 new -600's?

Here's hoping there's some better seats on the -600 options list.

from the above stuff.co.nz article:


Centre for Aviation analyst Will Horton said: "The experience from Virgin Australia is that the ATR72's economics are better than the Q400."

After 24 hours of Virgin operating the type in passenger service? Or was it written a day ago on the basis of the proving flights?

Uh huh.

Ghost W, I think that statement is made on their GM having good knowledge of the QFLink Q400 operation.

Snippet on radio says 12 ATR600's starting from this time next year.

Air NZ unveils $340m plane spend-up - Business - NZ Herald News

Air NZ to buy ATR72-600
 

Air NZ advise today that they have ordered seven new-generation ATR72-600 aircraft with purchase options for a further five worth a total list price of US$270 million. Today’s announcement will significantly boost air service connections to regional New Zealand.

The first of the 68 seat ATR72-600 aircraft will be delivered in October 2012 followed by a second in December that year, two in 2013 and another each year for three years. The five purchase options are available for delivery between 2014 and 2016.

This follows Air New Zealand’s investment in 23 Q300 aircraft over the past six years worth more than NZ$450 million at list price and the purchase from lease of the majority of ATR72-500 fleet over the past eighteen months.


The new-generation ATR72-600 is the most efficient aircraft in its class and features a new cabin layout with larger overhead bins, improved seating and advanced cockpit technology including Required Navigation Performance (RNP) technology. The introduction of RNP will further enhance our ability to maintain services during inclement weather to and from destinations like Queenstown, Rotorua and Wellington.

The new ATR 72-600 aircraft will give the means to up-gauge Q300 operated routes that will require more capacity in the coming years. In turn, this will release Q300 aircraft to up-gauge on some Beech 1900D operated routes, enabling us to look at start-up routes. So there is benefit in bringing in the larger turbo-props and cascading growth down throughout our regional operation. It is likely that some routes currently serviced by the smaller Q300, such as Nelson-Auckland and New Plymouth-Auckland, will see this larger turbo-prop in use.

It’s likely that the new fleet will be Auckland-based, providing us with an excellent spread of regional aircraft including bases in Christchurch, Nelson and Hamilton. This will give us a solid platform for regional growth particularly into and out of Auckland.

It doesn't mention anywhere in the article but I imagine these will go to Mt Cook? And if the Auckland base as mentioned goes ahead I guess this entails an Auckland Mt Cook base, ( I don't believe they have one currently??)

Great news :}

No they don't, which presents an interesting scenario for those Mt Cook pilots that have recently jumped ship to live clear of the quake stricken Christchurch. Will they get a look in from an Auckland base? I think offering those Pilots that option would be a kind gesture on the part of the powers that be.

I'm on the outside looking in here and Auckland is where I call home. I'd also give my left kidney for a job with Cook so it would appear the planets are aligning... I'd juuuust like to see the aforementioned pilots taken care of first.

In any case, plenty of speculation to run under the bridge, let's just see how things pan out.

:ok::ok::ok:

Does this also mean Mt Cook bases in Nelson and Hamilton as well as Christchurch and Auckland?

I think there were rumours a while back about a base or two outside of Christchurch. The earthquake may have given that a few more legs.

It was made clear in the press conference that no decision had been made around which entity will operate these new aircraft. The irony if Air NZ creates a new link carrier to operate these new ATRs given how so many Mt Cook pilots have been luke warm on the MECA idea where a pivotal clause centres around new aircraft having to be flown by exisiting link pilots (much water to go under the bridge I realise).

In all likelihood though, I would think the new aircraft will go to Cook. The airline will simply open an AA base which is easily done. Another reason this is likely, Fyfe kept talking up the RNP capability of the new aircraft for ZQN ops and I do not think we are going to be seeing AKL-ZQN on an ATR which leads me to think the aircraft will have a staging point much further south which could lend credence to Chook getting the new toys.

Hmmm...$340 million ..so that's what a rugby world cup victory on Sunday will cost..cheers Rob..cheers France

RNP AR is just as important at ROT and soon to be at AKL as well as ZQN.