Air New Zealand welcomes new Airbus A320s to Australia

Air New Zealand this week launched its new Tasman Express service, with low fares on every flight between Australia and New Zealand.

The airline also formally introduced its brand new Airbus A320 aircraft to the trans Tasman market.

Air New Zealand has now taken delivery of the first three of 15 new A320s, with a fourth due shortly, and the remaining 11 to be introduced progressively until early 2006.

The A320s are configured to seat 146 passengers in a two-class cabin - eight in Business Class and 138 in Pacific Class, with all leather covered seats and spacious legroom throughout.

Business Class also features extendable legrests, special power plugs for laptop computers, plus portable DVD players and an on board library of 15 titles.

The 146-seat A320s will provide not only additional flights, but will be used to replace a mix of 114-seat Boeing 737-300s and larger Boeing 767-200s.

This represents an increase of 32 seats per aircraft over the 737 - or a 28 per cent increase in seating capacity wherever an A320 replaces a 737.

Combined with the additional flights being introduced on the Tasman, Air New Zealand is offering more seats and greater choice of flights for trans Tasman business travellers, as well as better opportunities for leisure flyers to connect with onward flights within New Zealand, or to the Pacific Islands and USA.

The A320s have now started limited flying on the Sydney-Auckland, Melbourne-Auckland, Sydney-Christchurch and Melbourne-Christchurch sectors, and will become increasingly deployed on these routes as additional jets enter the fleet.

They also will be added progressively to other routes, including eastern Australia to Wellington and Queenstown.

At yesterday's Tasman Express launch in Sydney, members of Air New Zealand's NSW sales team took time to check out one of the new A320s, which now operate from the Harbour city daily to Auckland and initially three times weekly to Christchurch.

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Pictured aboard the A320 are Sydney Sales Team members - Left front Danielle Tuffield (Account Manager), left centre Lisa Dunn (Account Manager), left back Natalie Phillips (Sales Support), and Right front Nicole Bennett (Account Manager), right centre Peta Neaves (Account Manager), and right back, an Air New Zealand cabin crew member from New Zealand.