A Flight to New Zealand
Air Travel Tales & Info

A flight to New Zealand is no short hop. It took Captain James Cook 3 years to make the journey via Brazil and Tahiti. Mind you he had stopovers for a bit of sightseeing and discovering on the way! He should have got a Round the World ticket! Much quicker!

Travel to New Zealand was a journey and a half for the Polynesians too. Outrigger canoes carried them over the miles of Pacific Ocean until finally landing at the beautifully named Land of the Long White Cloud. Their own personal flight to New Zealand.

OK, you could sign up for the crew of a passing sail boat leaving Southampton, via the Caribbean, for New Zealand but that’s probably a different holiday altogether and certainly time consuming!

For you lucky folks a flight to New Zealand is a whole lot quicker and more comfortable! For more on frills, budget and cheap flights to New Zealand, click here!

Here are the basics in bullet points

• A flight to New Zealand is almost always a scheduled flight because there are very few charter flights or all-in package deals.

• The only Airline to provide direct (ie same plane) flights to New Zealand is Air New Zealand.

• Airfares as you would expect for a travel to New Zealand break are basically high in New Zealand summer (December to February) and low in NZ winter (June to August). The quaintly termed shoulder season (September to November and March to May) is when prices drop off from their summer high.

• From Europe your journey will take about 22 hours with a stopover in either Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, Bangkok, Tokyo, San Francisco or Los Angeles.

• From the US East Coast (LA and San Francisco) your journey is around 10.5 hours to get to a New Zealand airport.

• Vast majority of scheduled flights for air travel to New Zealand depart from London Heathrow.

• There are two New Zealand airports with runways large enough to receive international flights. They are Auckland and Christchurch but flights leave Wellington Dunedin etc and link up for international connections.

• The majority of scheduled airlines with flights to New Zealand have code sharing (see below) shuttle flights at no extra cost.

• A large number of the Airlines listed below offer RTW tickets (Round-The-World). These are generally valid for a 12 month period. These popular with gap year students.

Flight to New Zealand Passes

Air passes are designed to offer flexibility to the tourist on their travels to New Zealand. There are 3 main types of passes on offer. As with any flight information do your research and source your information.

Air Passes – Air New Zealand offer a number of cheap one way tickets in-country and these are well worth looking into if you plan to travel about by plane.

South Pacific Air Pass – This pass is designed on a zone system with differing prices depending on how broad the zone is. Some international flights to Australia and Pacific island flights are discounted.

Boomerang Pass - Quantas operate a zone system too and not just for their passengers. The zone perimeter depends on air miles either earned or purchased.

New Zealand International Airlines

Pacific Blue - Air New Zealand

Foreign Airlines flight to New Zealand

Cathay Pacific - Jetstar Airways (part of Quantas) - Korean Air - Malaysia Airlines - Pacific Blue Airlines - Qantas Airways - Royal Brunei Airlines - Singapore Airlines - Thai Airways International

International Airlines Serving New Zealand on a Code-Share Only Basis

Code sharing is simply an arrangement whereby an airline sells seats, under its own name, on another carrier's flight.

This practice allows airlines to extend their reach into cities or routes beyond those they actually serve. Initially code sharing allowed the larger airlines to show they served smaller cities when in fact the route was flown by a different airline. Eventually, code sharing grew to include agreements between the larger airlines, including for New Zealand air travel the following -

Air Canada - Air China - American Airlines - Austrian - British Airways - Delta Air Lines Japan Airlines - KLM Royal Dutch Airlines - Lufthansa - Mexicana - Scandinavian - Shanghai Airlines - United Airlines - US Airways - Polynesian Blue - LAN Airlines - EVA Air - Emirates Airline - Asian Express - Air Vanuatu - Air Tahiti - Nui Air - Pacific Air - Aerolineas Argentinas - Garuda Indonesia

Flight to New Zealand From the US and Canada

Los Angeles and San Francisco are the only terminals for trans pacific flights for air travel New Zealand.

Air New Zealand and Quantas operate but code sharing means you can purchase seats through Air Canada for example. Flights from other US cities are routed via Los Angeles, California.

In Canada you’ve the new Vancouver to Auckland direct flight to New Zealand. United Airlines and Air Canada connect through LA.

Flying from the US via Asia is not much longer and should be considered as a financially expedient alternative! Korean Airlines fly out of Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver and more. They fly via Seoul and on to Auckland.

Flight to New Zealand From Asia

The new non-stop service will operate twice a week.

Flights will operate out of Beijing on Thursday and Saturday...

And out of Auckland on a Wednesday and Friday.

There’s also the recently introduced Auckland-Shanghai and Hong Kong-London routes too.

Flight to New Zealand From Australia

The airlines fly into the Gold Coast, Melbourne and Sydney. Prices can be competitive and it's well worth investigating deals offered for a flight to New Zealand or Australia.

More to keep your eye on for a flight to New Zealand

• Remember to check out the open-jaw tickets for flying into one New Zealand airport and flying out of the other.

• Often the Vacation subsiduary of the Airline you book through will have flight and accommodation deals and also fly-drive deals for little more than the standard airfare.

• Don’t forget that New Zealand's departure tax is never included in your flight. You'll be asked to pay this (NZ$25) on departure (of course you will… It’s a departure tax…)

• Check discount and auction sites for ticket bargains. As with any online purchase get your receipts, booking confirmations and make sure you are covered by a recognised body for your flight.

• Air New Zealand ceased all Freedom Air operations from the end of March 2008. Freedom Air flights to New Zealand are being replaced by Air New Zealand flights.

• Freedom Air was Air New Zealand’s low-cost airline based in Auckland. It operated scheduled passenger services from New Zealand to Australia and Fiji and charter services within New Zealand.

You've seen that there's a lot to take in for your flight to New Zealand and the watchwords are research carefully.

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