Tourism between North America and New Zealand is rapidly growing, but until now the only nonstop flights from North America have been to Auckland, on New Zealand’s more populated North Island.
Air New Zealand has been adding coverage from most US cities, including Newark starting next October, to Auckland.
However New Zealand’s rugged South Island is far more beautiful with majestic mountains, glaciers, and fjords like Milford and Doubtful Sound.
American will add 3 weekly 787-8 nonstop flights from Los Angeles to the largest city on New Zealand’s South Island, Christchurch. It will operate on a seasonal basis between 10/25/20-3/24/21 for New Zealand’s summer season.
American is adding seasonal 787-9 service between Dallas and Auckland starting next October as well.
There are 2 Chabad Houses that operate seasonally on New Zealand’s South Island.
You can read more in the DDF New Zealand Master Thread.
Hopefully we’ll see Air New Zealand add some of their own direct service to New Zealand’s South Island!
Is New Zealand on your bucket list?
I assume these are on AA planes? Only asking as I’m hoping to fly business class there and was hoping for better planes such as Cathay Pacific but can never seem to find flights in Cathaway Pacific on those days
Correct.
Cathay Pacific availability is pretty good, but that would be via Hong Kong and would require 2 awards with AA miles.
and why in the world would american airlines operate a Cathay airplane ? and on a direct to NZ ?? maybe air Namibia should fly the united fight ewr-tlv ? i hear they have good seats. #letshope
After just reading about how horrible AA is and how they strnded people for a week Im not sure this is something to get excited about….:)
Well there are certainly worse places to be stranded in than New Zealand đ
I’m no expert on NZ, but isn’t CHC mostly a leisure destination compared to AKL (albeit a fantastic one?)?
I’d love for it to be successful, but there’s not a lot of 7,000 mile leisure routes for a reason
Correct. This is a gutsy play, would love to see it work out!
The 787-8 only has 20 business class seats, so this is definitely a leisure route.
“only has 20 business class seats….” Well, forget about award availability.
First thing that struck me when I saw this route is it being vintage AA – putting a plane on a route that will almost certainly never require competing with another airline (I fully expect them to fold on DFW-TLV if UA ever starts up from IAH).
They’re falling behind DL and UA in almost every major international destination, but nobody can compete with them flying to the 34th most populous city in Brazil!
Expect them to announce DFW-Pyongyang service any day now
I don’t know if this supports the viability of the CHC route, but this article certainly helps support the business case for a DFW-AKL route on a 787
https://www.dallasnews.com/business/airlines/2019/10/28/this-once-a-day-flight-from-dfw-airport-brings-in-over-400-million-a-year/