The four Air New Zealands…

It’s a four-airline problem: there isn’t just one Air New Zealand, there are four of them, some inconsistent even in their own ways.

Starting small, the first Air New Zealand is made up of the three regional network carriers: Eagle Airways’ 19-seat Beechcraft 1900D puddle-jumpers, Air Nelson’s Dash-8 Q300 50-seaters and Mount Cook Airline’s 68-seat ATR 72 turboprops. These three subsidiaries provide a vital monopoly service connecting New Zealand’s regional cities: no frills, narrow seats, not much legroom, beats driving.

The second Air New Zealand operates the domestic triangle services using mostly 737 and A320 jets between Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. In an all-economy configuration for the relatively short flight times, the passenger experience is fine, especially for frequent flyers and savvy passengers, who can find themselves in the extra-legroom section at the front of the plane.

Compared with the competition, Air New Zealand’s jet fleet enjoys a passenger experience advantage over Jetstar and its A320 fleet between Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Queenstown and Dunedin.

Jetstar has a poor domestic reputation for anything other than price, whether it’s for knee-crunching seat pitch, schedules focused on utilisation rather than schedule, grubby interiors, heartstring-plucking PR disasters like refusing to change the ticket of a grieving mother or cancelling flights from curfew-bound and weather-sensitive Queenstown while Air NZ flights continue to operate.

Yet even so, the Air New Zealand passenger experience value proposition fails when it schedules the squashed Link turboprops alongside A320s – both its own spacious version and Jetstar’s less roomy configuration.

Wellington-Christchurch, for example, is roughly a 45-minute flight, slightly longer on a turboprop. Several months ago, pricing a return ticket, Jetstar’s A320 was around A$160 less than Air NZ’s cheapest offering on an ATR. Aside from lounge access at Wellington and Christchurch, the passenger experience onboard those two aircraft is very similar – and Jetstar even comes out ahead given the ability to stump up a token amount for an extra legroom seat.

Crossing the Tasman, the third Air New Zealand uses the ‘Seats to Suit’ all-economy fare family strategy. It appears to have paid off in terms of the bottom line. Yet frequent flyers and business travellers are turned off by the inconsistency of premium seating, since the top option on A320-operated flights is the middle-seat-free Eurobusiness-style Works Deluxe. From Auckland, the airline also offers widebody flights to some Australian destinations yet the aircraft scheduling is unpredictable. “Book me on that nice 3. 30pm flight” doesn’t work if the flight is on an A320 only some days of the week.

Further afield, the fourth Air New Zealand is the long-haul international service – a frustrating mix of the excellent and the execrable. Business Premier is world-class both in terms of hard and soft product, with outstanding fully flat beds with aisle access for all on the 747 and 777-300ER. Yet the 767 business class recliner – which I was unlucky enough to experience on a 12-plus hour flight from Narita to Auckland – is dire.

In Premium Economy, the new 777-300ER Spaceseats are now class-leading products (following the removal of a row to add extra pitch a few months after their introduction). The recliner-style Pacific Premium Economy offerings on the soon-to-be-retired 747 are excellent: a 3-2 configuration upstairs or 2-across mini-cabins downstairs, yet on the 777-200 the 3-3-3 layout isn’t much better than economy in anything but legroom.

But you pay over the odds for it. For an Auckland to London return, Malaysia Airlines’ business class (angled flat on a 777 to KUL and full flat on the A380 to LHR) is reliably hundreds of dollars cheaper than Air NZ’s Premium Economy. And Kuala Lumpur is a significantly more pleasant connection than Los Angeles.

Economy passengers come off poorly in the inflight inconsistency stakes too. The newer 777-300 economy, with its narrower seats and 3-4-3 layout that means you can’t wheel a roll-aboard down the aisles, is an awful squash, especially compared with the 3-3-3 layout and more generous seat pitch on the 777-200. Air New Zealand used to be an airline of choice for economy. Now, despite the gimmicky Skycouch, it’s one to avoid, or at least scrutinise very carefully.

Passenger experience observers with a New Zealand focus are already watching Calum Laming, the first appointee to the newly created post of general manager customer experience. Laming, who comes recently from Etihad and previously from Virgin Atlantic – both airlines with a strong stripe of product consistency running through them – has an interesting challenge ahead of him.