Air NZ are making their first charter flight to Buenos Aires to take the All Blacks aver to play Argentina. Nice bit of PR to build up the brand and destination before launching a regular commercial service?
With ETOPS 330 Buenos Aires is now within range of their 777s, this is not my area though and will be interested to see what kind of plane they use. I think they could make the route work with 747s as their competitors fly A340s and thus are not going to be at much of a cost disadvantage. Anyone know when Air NZ plan to retire the last of their 747s?
What I would like to see is a service from Auckland to Sao Paulo (GRU) via Buenos Aires. The demand and the money in South America is now unquestionably in Brazil and Sao Paulo city has the population of Australia. With our beaches, laid back lifestyle, and relatively cheap english schools we are a popular destination for Brazilians. Air NZ could also source significant traffic out of Australia via connecting trans-tasman flights for this service.
Not sure if the Argentines would allow such a hop but can't see why not as it would be good for their tourist industry and is the same thing that Aerolinas do, currently stopping at Auckland on their way to Sydney.
One other problem is a potential lack of code share and alliance partners for the route. TAM, a member of the Star Alliance would have been a perfect fit but since the merger with LAN has been announced they have indicated more of a preference for the combined group to join Oneworld which leaves Star Alliance with only Avianca in South America.
Air NZ would be easily be no. 1 on the route with little real competition as Aerolinas is comfortably the worst airline I have ever flown with yet Aerolinas is also regularly full on this route!