Steve,My roommate sent me this link today. http://www.airliners.net/discussions/gener...d.main/2873585/"The route review will also see Air New Zealand's Boeing 777 aircraft deployed on flights NZ1 from Heathrow to Auckland and NZ2 from Auckland to Heathrow, both via Los Angeles effective 29 and 28 October respectively."Are you allowed to tell us what ANZ is doing with the 744's? Any info would be nice. I'm not happy to see the 747 being replaced by the 777. :(

>http://www.airliners.net/discussions/gener...d.main/2873585/>>"The route review will also see Air New Zealand's Boeing 777>aircraft deployed on flights NZ1 from Heathrow to Auckland and>NZ2 from Auckland to Heathrow, both via Los Angeles effective>29 and 28 October respectively.">>Are you allowed to tell us what ANZ is doing with the 744's?>Any info would be nice. I'm not happy to see the 747 being>replaced by the 777. :(The following quote is from the same announcement on airliners.net :"Boeing 747 capacity will be put back on to the Auckland - Los Angeles - London route during the December to January high season". Looks like a lot of 747's will be surplus to capacity unless they go on to new routes, i think the main thing here is to do with fuel economy, the 747's are very fuel-hungry aircraft.Not really good after air new zealand recently refurbished all the 747-400 fleet at a cost of millions of $! :(Darren

The 777 will take over from the 747 on the Auckland-Los Angeles-London route. This will save some NZ$62 million. The 747 will be redeployed to Auckland-Hong Kong-Auckland route.747 will also pick up an additional AKL/LAX/AKL flight that is currently been done by the 777. Our summer 3 times per week CHC/LAX/CHC service will not operate this summer either. Services to Singapore from AKL will cease as the compnay focuses on Northern Asia. A 777 Shanghai service starts later this year. In reality a 747 will be be parked, possibly two although the company is looking at various options to lease them (wet or dry).One of the 747 has not been refitted so I guess that is one that will be parked. Does seem a shame to see such great aircraft parked. Unfortunately the airlines are run by bean counters and not pilots and as long as the men in suits keep talking the oil prices up we will all suffer. Crazy when you think about it. It still costs the same amount to extract and distribute it. Just futures traders and oil companies lining there own pockets.CheersSteve

It's certinaly sad to see Singapore dropped after such a long history on the route, but if the route really was losing $20M (NZD) a year it had to go. Singapore has had better inflight entertainment and newer aircraft on this route for years, it's no wonder Air NZ struggled. Frankly a 30% market share was a pretty admirable effort in the circumstances.As for the 744 reshuffle, this IS sad, but then again welcome to the airline industry in the new millenium... :-(