Air New Zealand Reveals New Boeing 777 Business Class

Travellers will be excited to hear about an enhanced Air New Zealand Business Class cabin. The airline has revealed a retrofitted product across its Boeing 777-300ER fleet. This means their onboard experience for customers travelling to and from New Zealand is sure to be elevated.

Air New Zealand has direct flights to major cities across Australia, the Pacific Islands, Asia and North America. Through strong partnerships with Star Alliance members, they offer customers further connectivity to hundreds of destinations.

Learn more about the enhanced cabin upgrades below.

What Are the New Changes?

The new onboard experience for the 777 fleet will see a refreshed Business Premier cabin. It will feature new Collins Elevation seats, offering customers more personal space, comfort and privacy, all in a forward-facing layout. Air New Zealand Chief Customer & Digital Officer Jeremy O'Brien says the investment aims to ensure the airline delivers a product that meets customer needs now and into the future.

"The updated Business Premier cabin will deliver a modern experience for our customers and brings similar functionality to the new seats being rolled out across our 787-9 fleet. It will also see the layout change to a 'reverse herringbone' format," says O'Brien.

Key features include:

• 44 seats (unchanged from current layout)
• 43" pitch seats that convert to a lie-flat bed
• All seats will have doors for enhanced privacy
• Centre seats have sliding privacy dividers
• 18" inflight entertainment screens with Bluetooth audio connectivity
• USB A and USB C connection

The extensive refit will see all seven of the Boeings upgraded with Business suites that are very different to those of the refreshed 787-9 Dreamliners. Plus, they’re a mile away from Air New Zealand’s current 777 Business Class seat which launched more than 20 years ago. Frequent flyers will recognise the similarity between the British Airways Club Suite, the Malaysia Airlines A330neo fleet and the Philippine Airlines A350-1000s.

When Can You Expect the Enhancements?

As a result of the refit, Air New Zealand intends to be flying its 777s a bit longer, and will push their retirement into the next decade.

“The 777 is a great aircraft for us, but the interior is something that we needed to bring up to modern customer expectations,” says Baden Smith, Air New Zealand’s General Manager of Strategy, Networks and Fleet.

“The original plan for disposing of those aircraft was probably late 2020s. This probably gives us the opportunity to fly them into the early 2030s.”

The first 777 will be refitted in March 2027 and take to the skies in May; the remainder of the fleet will get their make-over across the second half of the year.

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