Air New Zealand to refurbish 777-300ER aircraft

Air New Zealand have recently announced a rather exciting refurbishment programme for their seven Boeing 777-300ER aircraft; which will begin early next year and amount to more than $100 million New Zealand Dollars of investment into enhancing the customer experience.

Beginning in February 2017, each Boeing 777-300ER aircraft will be progressively taken out of service to receive an extensive makeover, which will involve stripping the aircraft back to it’s bare shell. When complete, customers will be able to look forward to a refreshed Business Premier Cabin and new Economy seats with a slimmer back. The Premium Economy cabin will see the biggest change with the removal of the popular Premium Economy Spaceseat™.

This will be replaced by Air New Zealand’s luxury leather Premium Economy seat – which made it’s debut on the airlines’ 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft in 2014; and will allow for an additional ten passengers to travel in the cabin, as opposed to the current capacity of 44.

Additional enhancements during the 777-300ER refurbishment will include the installation of Panasonic Avionic’s eX3 in-flight entertainment system; which boasts more than 2,000 hours of on-demand content accessible though a simple and easy to use interface. The Panasonic eX3 system is already present on Air New Zealand’s 787-9 Dreamliner fleet.

If that wasn’t enough news about cabin changes, the Auckland-based carrier have also announced a few changes to three of their 787-9 aircraft which are scheduled to be delivered from October 2017. These 787-9’s will feature a different cabin configuration which will allow for an additional nine seats in Business Premier, and an additional twelve in Premium Economy; taking the cabin capacity to 27 and 33 respectively.

The progressive refurbishment of all seven of Air New Zealand’s 777-3ooER aircraft is scheduled to be completed by sometime in November 2017.

Thoughts on the Premium Economy Changes

The good news is that Air New Zealand’s Premium Economy cabin will still retain it’s very generous 41″-42″ seat pitch, with seats that sport a 9″ recline, and a width of 19.3″. However to allow for the additional seats, the cabin will feature a 2-4-2 configuration.

The “new” Premium Economy seats feature a generously sized 5″ armrest, a leg rest and extendable foot support; but it’s worth noting that when utilising the recline function, the seat will follow the same conventions of any-other Premium Economy seat and encroach in the space of passengers sitting behind.

I admit I will be very sad to see the Premium Economy Spaceseat™ making its way into the historical archives for Air New Zealand; the innovative slightly angled seat featured a fixed-shell which allowed passengers to recline without encroaching into the space of their fellow passengers. The manual “tilt and shift” functions did used to challenging to operate and not everyone found it comfortable.

Thoughts on the overall refurbishment programme

I think it’s great news that Air New Zealand are investing a significant amount into enhancing their hard product aboard their international product. Granted the removal of the Premium Economy Spaceseat™ was going to cause controversy; but I understand the reasons for making such a decision. Slimmer seats equates to room for more, which in turn leads to additional revenue. The aviation market is very competitive and even with the new seats (as found on the 787-9 Dreamliner); the airline is still commanding as one of the better Premium Economy products in the market.

In-flight entertainment is always important, especially as so many of us are now tech-savvy. Air New Zealand have worked closely with Panasonic to design their new interface; which is incredibly easy to use. As they say, it’s just like swiping though various tiles on a tablet.

When will we start to see the changes?

As of now, it’s expected for the current Premium Economy Spaceseat™ to remain flying on the London – Los Angeles – Auckland NZ1/NZ2 route until August 28, 2017. It’s worth noting due to operational requirements this may change.

Your thoughts
What do you think of the changes?I for one look forward to hopefully experiencing the new Premium Economy seat and the rest of the enhancements on the refurbished 777-300ER’s for myself; and of course I’ll share my views.