Why is Air New Zealand sending one of its newest planes to the Australian desert?

Tuesday, 27 August 2024

It's the biggest ever jet to be based in the domestic fleet, and will need to board earlier than normal to get away on time.

An Air NZ aircraft, ZK-OYC, has arrived in the Australian desert for storage.

The airline will send up to four out-of-service aircraft at a time to Alice Springs.

The national carrier has been grappling with supply problems with Rolls Royce and Pratt & Whitney engines for months.

Air New Zealand has announced it is going to send some of its out-of-service aircraft into storage in the Australian desert.

The national carrier has been grappling with supply problems with Rolls Royce and Pratt & Whitney engines for months.

In some cases the engines of brand new domestic jets were used on internationally configured aircraft.

In a statement, Air NZ said a combination of A321 and 787 aircraft would fly to Alice Springs for storage as “the dry and low humidity conditions are very suitable for aircraft storage, and the move frees up space at our Auckland hangars for its scheduled engineering and maintenance programme”.

ZK-OYC was introduced with fanfare in February 2023.

Alice Springs famously became a storage area for aircraft during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The first Air NZ aircraft has already made its way there.

An A321, with the registration ZK-OYC, arrived in the Northern Territory on Tuesday. Flightradar24 shows the aircraft leaving Auckland for Adelaide on Monday afternoon, before flying to Alice Springs the next morning.

Air New Zealand’s grounded planes in Christchurch.

This particular plane was introduced with fanfare in February 2023.

It had been designed specifically for short-haul and domestic routes to fly predominantly on the airline’s trunk routes, between Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Queenstown and Dunedin.

Air NZ will have up to four aircraft on the ground in Alice Springs at any one time and it will swap them in and out as engines become available.

Last year, CEO Greg Foran warned schedules would be affected by the engine issues for up to two years.

In July 2023, Pratt & Whitney said there was a condition affecting the maintenance plan for the Geared Turbofan jet engine fleet, with up to 700 engines globally impacted over three years.

As a result, Air NZ halted flights to Hobart and Seoul to help maintain “a reliable service across the rest of our network and get customers on our most in-demand routes to where they need to be,” said Foran at the time.

It also entered twice into lease agreements with Spanish charter airline Wamos Air to fly on the Auckland-Perth route.