Air New Zealand secures capacity for summer with Cathay Pacific

With a sense of relief, Air New Zealand has struck a deal with Cathay Pacific, easing the pressure on the airline of the Rolls-Royce engine issues on its Boeing 787-9 aircraft.

Cathay Pacific will take over the Auckland to Hong Kong route for much of the summer, using Airbus A350 and Boeing 777 aircraft.

An additional A350-900 will operate on the route between 6 and 19 January 2020. With 280 seats, and operating daily, passengers will fly in 3 classes of Economy, Premium Economy and Business.

From 1 February 2020, Cathay Pacific will also operate a Boeing 777-300ER with 294 seats with the same cabin options as the A350. It will operate daily in February and five times a week in March.

This is not bad news for customers – they will be automatically transferred to those services for the periods and will be contacted directly or via travel agent if one was engaged.

Services offered by Cathay are of similar quality, plane configuration and duration to Air New Zealand. This move also eliminates interruptions to travellers’ schedules.

For Cathay Pacific, this may deliver some welcome usage of its fleet, with near capacity operations on the route; particularly after the Hong Kong protests have severely impacted the bottom line and passenger numbers.