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| Air New Zealand Boeing 787-10 Photo Air New Zealand |
Air New Zealand is axing nearly 100 flights over this festive season over continuing issues of the Rolls-Royce engines on its Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft.
Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines that power the Air New Zealand fleet are in need of more frequent maintenance and checks, which has left the carrier short of spares. Air New Zealand’s senior fleet manager 787, Captain Dave Wilson, said: “We have 14 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft in our fleet and four spare engines to power these. However, all these spare engines are with Rolls Royce offshore either undergoing service or waiting for a service slot.”
Air New Zealand Senior Manager Customer Care and Communications Doug Grant says the airline is well placed to minimise the impact on customers. "Going into the holiday season we're acutely aware how important travel is to our customers, and our schedule changes are designed to keep cancellations to a minimum. Unfortunately, around 14,000 customers will be impacted by cancellations and we thank them in advance for their understanding.”
The airline will suspend its twice-weekly seasonal Christchurch-Perth service. It will also cancel its second daily Auckland-Perth service from 10 December 2019 until 5 January 2020 and Air New Zealand will continue to operate its 11:10am Auckland-Perth and 6:50pm Perth-Auckland services as scheduled.
Other cancellations include:
Air New Zealand said: “The airline will start processing changes to customers’ bookings this week and then directly contact customers affected by these changes with new travel information.”
Eating cups.....
Air New Zealand trials edible coffee
Air New Zealand has begun trialling edible coffee cups with customers in the air and on the ground as it explores new and innovative ways to meet its sustainability challenges.
Air New Zealand Senior Manager Customer Experience Niki Chave says that while the cups are compostable, the ultimate goal would be to remove these totally from landfills.
“We’ve been working in partnership with innovative New Zealand company ’twiice’ to explore the future of edible coffee cups, which are vanilla flavoured and leakproof. The cups have been a big hit with the customers who have used these and we’ve also been using the cups as dessert bowls,” Ms Chave says.
’twiice’ co-founder, Jamie Cashmore says the edible cups could play a big role in demonstrating to the world that new and innovative ways of packaging are achievable.
“It’s terrific that Air New Zealand has partnered with us to showcase to its customers and the world that a little bit of Kiwi ingenuity and innovation could have a really positive impact on the environment while at the same time delivering a really cool and tasty customer experience,” Mr Cashmore says.
Mr Cashmore says ’twiice’ is working on extending its edible range of crockery and expects to roll out new products next year.
The ’twiice’ edible cup trial backs up Air New Zealand’s recent switch to plant-based coffee cups on board all aircraft and in lounges. The plant-based cups are made from paper and corn instead of plastic, which enables the cup to break down in a commercial composter. Switching to plant-based coffee cups is expected to prevent around 15 million cups from going to landfill annually. The airline is also encouraging customers to bring their own reusable cups onboard aircraft and into its lounges.
Ms Chave says the airline will continue to trial ’twiice’s’ edible coffee cups and work with the company and other partners to explore scaling options that could make it a viable long-term product for the airline.
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