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Air New Zealand Dreamliner jets off to Singapore for world-first nose-to-tail makeover
Thursday, October 17, 2024
Air New Zealand has kicked off a serious refresh of its Boeing 787-9 fleet, with the primary of 14 plane touching down in Singapore on Sunday to be retrofitted with new cabin inside.
The plane, with the license plate ZK-NZH, will spend a while at ST Engineering, the airline’s heavy upkeep accomplice, the place it would have its present inside stripped out and all-new merchandise put in, together with revamped seats in Financial system and Premium Financial system, and the redesigned Enterprise Premier cabin, together with the brand new Enterprise Premier Luxe product.
Air New Zealand’s Common Supervisor of Technique, Networks and Fleet, Baden Smith says the arrival of the plane in Singapore marked a key milestone for the much-anticipated mission.
“In 2014, Air New Zealand was the launch buyer for the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. A decade on, it feels becoming that we’re the primary airline on the planet to retrofit these plane nose-to-tail with a brand new inside.
“This retrofit programme will see all of the interiors eliminated, together with the seats, inflight leisure system, carpet, curtains, and bathroom wallpaper, earlier than it’s all changed with new product.
“The aircraft will then come back to New Zealand where our team will spend a few weeks working through various checks and training before it officially enters the flying schedule in the next year.”
Over the following two years, all 14 of the airline’s 787-9 plane will likely be retrofitted separately on a rolling schedule.
“Once the first aircraft has been retrofitted and certified, the remaining aircraft will head to Singapore one by one,” says Smith.
“We’re retrofitting them separately to make sure we’ve got sufficient plane to fly our schedule, and we aren’t disrupting prospects’ journey plans.
Rolling out this retrofit programme earlier than we get our new plane additionally places us in a superb place to proceed delivering an distinctive flying expertise for our prospects.”
Mr Tan Eng Shu, EVP and Head of Aerospace MRO, ST Engineering, says, “We’re excited to welcome the primary of the 14 Boeing 787-9 plane to our Singapore amenities for the much-anticipated main refresh of Air New Zealand’s Dreamliner fleet.
Being a long-standing MRO accomplice to Air New Zealand, we’re capable of help their Dreamliner fleet’s lifecycle necessities, from upkeep work to now what can be the world’s first full cabin retrofit on a Boeing 787-9.
We respect the chance and stay up for enhancing our partnership and being a part of the brand new Dreamliner expertise with Air New Zealand.”
What’s a retrofit?
A retrofit means we’re taking an present plane and changing the product inside it.
Consider it such as you would when renovating a home; eradicating the carpet, curtains, furnishings, wallpaper, and changing all the things inside.
The scope of the retrofit contains:
New seats in each cabin, together with the brand new Enterprise Premier Luxe™ seats within the Enterprise Premier cabinNew carpet all through the aircraftNew curtains between cabins and galleysNew wallpaper, hands-free waste disposal, and amenity holders within the lavatoriesNew inflight leisure screens and systemSky Pantry put in within the Financial system cabinThe plane LOPA (Format of Passenger Lodging) on all 14 plane will likely be reconfigured to have 272 seats; that includes 4 Enterprise Premier Luxe seats, 22 Enterprise Premier seats, 33 Premium Financial system seats, and 213 Financial system seats, together with 13 Financial system Skycouch™.
At the moment, the airline’s 787-9 plane have two completely different LOPA or configurations; 9 plane with 302 seats, and 5 plane with 275 seats.
