Air New Zealand Business Class Award Inventory Intrigue

It seems that the “impossible to find” business class award inventory from Air New Zealand is not so impossible any more. There was some discussion of it on FlyerTalk earlier this week and, given my love for all things data, I took a closer look to see if there are any patterns to be sussed out. I was able to find at least one business class award seat on each of the five routes operated by the carrier touching North America, though not always in both directions and, best I can tell, only 90 days out at most. Even with these limitations it is still interesting to see that perhaps the carrier is shifting its behavior when it comes to long-haul, premium cabin award space. Even just a tiny bit.

And, of course, with the apparent 90-day window on some of these routes, paying attention going forward will be important.

Houston and Vancouver were the tightest squeeze still on award space in my searches. And for both of those seats are only available on the non-stop flights to Auckland, not those back to North America.

San Francisco is a bit more open but, again, almost nothing headed back to New Zealand open.

Los Angeles, both to Auckland and to London-Heathrow is where the bulk of the award space is available.