FLIGHT OF FANCY
Air NZ’s newest plane touches down
Air New Zealand’s newest plane, the Airbus A321neo, has landed in Auckland. The 214-seat plane arrived with nine staff on board the ferry flight, which started at Airbus’ manufacturing plant in Hamburg and flew via Oman, Kuala Lumpur and Cairns.
The single-aisle A321neo (new engine option) is the first of 13 new Airbus neo aircraft (seven A321neos and six A320neos) to join the fleet over the next year. The A321s will be used on short-haul international flights.
The aircraft is longer than the A320s used on domestic and shorthaul routes and is equipped with cutting-edge Pratt & Whitney GTF (geared turbo-fan) engines, which are more efficient and quieter than existing engines, but which have suffered some teething problems.
Pratt & Whitney said that Air NZ’s A321 GTF engines are backed by a service agreement for up to 16 years.
“Air New Zealand has been a Pratt & Whitney customer for more than five decades, dating back to when its forerunner, Tasman Empire Airways Limited, operated the Douglas DC-8 powered by the JT3D engine,” said Rick Deurloo, senior vice president of sales, marketing and customer support at Pratt & Whitney.
The company says that since entering into service in 2016, the GTF engine has demonstrated its ability to reduce fuel burn by 16 per cent, to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 50 per cent and to lower the noise footprint by 75 per cent.
Air New Zealand had delayed the delivery of the first A321 to get more certainty after engine problems emerged.
“As with new products there are sometimes infancy issues as the engine matures, and no engine is immune to those things. I think now they’ve reached a reasonably high level of maturity and reliability,” head of aircraft programmes Kerry Reeves said last month.
The aircraft, with the tail registration ZK-NNA, is expected to enter commercial service on November 23, operating flight NZ739 from Auckland to Brisbane.
The A321s are 7.5m longer than A320s and will have 46 more seats in a completely revamped interior.
The slimline seats, upholstered with leather from Taranaki, are wider than those on existing A320s. The middle seat will be 49cm — 3cm wider than the middle seats on the airline’s existing A320 short-haul fleet — and the aisle and window seat 47cm — 1 cm wider than now.
Seat pitch ranges from 29 inches to 33 inches (74-83cm) compared to 30-34 inches in A320s used on international flights.