Air New Zealand is getting so green it's gonna blend right in with the trees soon. Enabling domestic passengers to buy carbon credits is old news now, and that program's been extended to international guests now, too. The surcharge you pay gets directed into projects like the Tararua wind farm on New Zealand's north island.
Beyond carbon credits, Air NZ has been carefully optimizing things like speed and weight with the goal of reducing their carbon emissions by 100,000 tons in five years--and they're doing so well they're ahead of schedule.
And now they plan to become the first airline in the world to test a biofuel made from the nut of an Indian plant, called jatropha. They'll test it later this year and already plan to be using it on 50 percent of domestic flights by 2013. Soon the carrier will have to paint all their aircraft green.
We put out the call when Air New Zealand was looking for nerds. You'll remember the carrier was recruiting knowledge junkies to be "onboard concierges" to dazzle passengers with facts and figures--and enticing tourism ideas--about New Zealand. Weird, but in a nice way.
Turns out they got over 500 good applicants and have now whittled that down to 40 successful candidates. They're being trained now and will be hanging around on flights from May.
As well as chatting to passengers about what to do in New Zealand--the airline estimates that should take up 60 to 70 percent of their time--the on-board concierges will also perform duties like helping people with air miles questions, onward flight confusions and big decisions like which wine to choose for their meal. Still, we're not fully sold on the concierge idea yet: Could it be just another person to bug us while we're trying to get some sleep?
But the latest Air NZ news is not quirky, but very green--and we like that too. Since last Thursday, Air New Zealand passengers have been able to buy carbon credits to offset the environmentally unfriendly effects of their journey.
Unfortunately the carbon offsets are only available to domestic passengers at the moment, but later this year will be rolled out for international passengers too. As an example, the offset for an Auckland to Los Angeles flight would cost around $70, in order to make up for the 2.9 tons of CO2 your share of the flight emits. Discounts available if you exhale less, of course.
Air New Zealand ran an unusual promotion this week to let Kiwis know the airline's increasing capacity on domestic flights, with Boeing 737s coming into use. That news of itself isn't too exciting, but Air NZ got a bunch of city mayors together to compete for cheap tickets, and that's when things got spicy.
The mayors of four cities were taken down to a fire station to compete in the Mayor Idol contest. Pole-dancing started the day, and then there was something akin to a wet T-shirt contest when the hoses came out.
The winner, Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt, was proud that citizens of his town got the chance to buy $1 tickets for flights between Invercargill and Christchurch. A thousand $1 tickets were sold over the weekend and everybody who got one can be thankful that their mayor was a great pole dancer.
The big airline of Kiwi-land, Air New Zealand, has been all over the headlines in the last week as it tries to juggle its routes and keep market share amidst the chaos of new airlines tumbling into the Australasian market at the moment.
To start with the good news: Air Transport World magazine has just picked Air NZ as the airline with the best passenger service, because apparently Air NZ staff "are known for their warmth and cheeriness." But apparently on the home front, cheeriness is not enough, as last week Air NZ was forced to discount its domestic fares by up to 30 percent to stop more of its customers heading to discount carriers like Pacific Blue.
Yet if you were planning to hop a flight from Los Angeles to Fiji, a route usually covered by Air NZ, you'll now need to fly the code-shared route on Air Pacific. They decided that wasn't worth their while any more--perhaps the friendly Air Pacific staff were even warmer and more cheerful.
Finally, a job for your know-it-all friend who always beats you at Trivial Pursuit. Air New Zealand is looking for "walking Wikipedias" for its long-haul flights, helping customers with travel questions and trip planning. They'll even hang in airports with passengers who get stuck when the weather turns nasty.
The airborne concierges will be at the service of all passengers, first class to coach. They'll be trained in safety stuff but won't take over flight attendants' duties; the concierges will be free to fill in first-time New Zealand visitors on must-see attractions rather than hand out pretzels.
The airline hopes to have the first of its 90 new crew members on flights by April, traveling between Auckland and LA, San Francisco, Vancouver and Hong Kong. Just think, if you get your brainy friend to sign up, she'll be thousands of miles away next time you break out the board games.
Quick--name your three favorite New Zealand bands or singers. Can't think of that many? We can't either, so it's probably a good thing that Air New Zealand is implementing an all-Kiwi-music scheme.
From now on, passengers on all the domestic flights across New Zealand will be entertained by a playlist consisting purely of local music (including names like Dave Dobbyn, Goldenhorse and Tiki, if they ring any bells). Departure lounges and air bridges operating Air New Zealand flights will also have tunes by local artists piped in.
It seems like a lovely idea, but we're not sure how transferable it is. All-Australian rock on Qantas is something we can imagine. But we're not sure if we could survive an Iceland Express flight which played 100% Björk, no matter how cheap the flight might be.
Unless you're lucky enough to live "next door" in Australia, any flight to New Zealand is a pretty long one, especially if you're sitting in economy. Air New Zealand is considering some kind of pod capsules to replace seats on overnight long-haul flights (think a flying Yotel); at the moment it's completely only at the ideas stage, but might follow a design that Lufthansa's been considering:
One concept showed berths stacked three-high in a herringbone layout along the sides, and another row stacked down the middle of the cabin.
Naturally eating in a pod would be messy so Air NZ said they would then feed passengers at the airport and then let them sleep as soon as they were on board. It does sound kind of attractive, but we're talking some years of development first, so don't go rushing to book your Air NZ sleeper pod just yet.
0 Comments - Add Yours
by amandak
