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Reported today in the New Zealand Herald
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12037430
“Portuguese charter operator Hi Fly is heading back to this country to help cover for Air New Zealand, which faces more disruption because of problems affecting Roll-Royce engines on some of its Dreamliners.”
“Air New Zealand has confirmed Hi Fly is returning next month but has not specified which routes it will service.”
It will be interesting to see how long they are here and what flights are covered by Hi Fly this time…
Looking at the schedule cancellations as of today it’s Perth and Sydney on the chopping block, predominantly Perth. As a destination Perth is easily reached via stopovers in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, but Melbourne is the best airport in Australia to transit so it’s easy to see why Perth is cancelled. Air NZ can still fly passengers via these other airports then hand them on to VA or QF if needed. Only stink part is neither of them have PE domestically so you’re likely to suffer a downgrade to economy on the domestic legs.
Auckland – Sydney sometimes operates a 772 which can do 2 return trips in a day. They may want to take the aircraft off that route and place it on a long haul route elsewhere. The 789 should be fine flying that route & schedule.
I don’t know how many Hifly aircraft NZ are bringing back. It was 2 last time with 3 planes out but currently 2 NZ planes out of action. Hifly seem to have aircraft in their fleet that we don’t meaning our pilots and cabin crew aren’t trained for them, hence we need to have Hifly crew. I really value the Air NZ crew. I would probably be ok flying Hifly Auckland to Sydney. I most often fly economy and would be fine with Hifly on such a short route. Of course the alternative to Hifly is to fly someone else.
My guess based on previous routes Hifly flew and current routes being cancelled is Hifly will go to Perth and Sydney again.
I read the more frequent engine checks required take hours (could be 2, could be 12! Who knows although they did get through 9 engines in good time last week) and they can be done with the engine still on the aircraft. Once it fails a check it needs to be removed from the aircraft and is sent to Singapore. Rolls Royce who make the Trent engines affected has a hub there. I think I read it was ‘weeks’ for the repair. I was thinking at least they didn’t say ‘a month’ or ‘months’ so am guessing 3-4 weeks. I don’t know if that is actual repair time or if it includes ‘waiting to be repaired time’ given a number of other airlines are affected. Although only 2 of 9 engines failed the check I do wonder if the other engines will eventually fail checks and need to go through the same repair process or if it’s something that will be proactively fixed when the schedule allows. Meaning hifly could be around for a while.
There is information on the internet but the jargon can be a bit tough to get through. I’m sure a school teacher once said if you have to look every 5th word up then the book is too tough. It’s sort of like that for me!
I’m sure more information will be available over time.
There is also speculation a SQ 777 is coming to help as well. Presumably this will be able to have NZ cabin crew.
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