Air New Zealand can broadly be described as one of the unluckiest carriers going around.
The New Zealand flag carrier faced issues hitting their Boeing 787s many years ago, forcing them to wet-lease, and now persistent problems of engines on their aircraft will hurt them into 2024.
The issues centre around Pratt & Whitney and the maintenance of their geared turbofan engines. Pratt & Whitney has been front and centre for the ongoing global engine shortages and crisis, with many customers and, thus, aircraft families being impacted.
Over the next three years, the forecast sees that over 500 engines will be impacted due to ongoing engine issues.
Notably, for Air New Zealand, the concern surrounds their newly delivered Airbus A320neo and A321neo aircraft, which are essential to their day-to-day operations.
Air New Zealand says it’ll work diligently to limit the overall schedule implications on customers. However, the likelihood that changes will be made is high.
The flag carrier has 106 aircraft in service, and away from the ATR 72-600, the A320-200 is the most critical aircraft measured by active units, with 17 remaining in service. However, these will eventually be replaced by the new engine option.
Seems like their is a concerted effort to make travelling as expensive and unpleasant all at the same time. I believe this is the result of ideological ideals as opposed to business sense in the management. This process seems to have begun coinciding with the Covid pandemic and foreseen economic consequences ignored.