Yesterday, Continental announced its first 787 route - Houston to Auckland starting on November 16, 2011. Service will vary between daily and five-times weekly. This is a Continental announcement, but I think it’s important to look at this from a Continental-United perspective. In the case of both airlines, it is a return to Auckland – just check out these old Continental and United route maps.
It is pretty early to announce a new route that starts in about a year and a half, but as Adrian Schofield at Aviation Week wrote , there are some good political reasons to do that. But that doesn’t mean I think the route can’t stand on its own.
This route is one the 787 was built for – thinner markets that are further away. Could Air New Zealand do this route with one of its shiny new 777-300ERs? Sure, but there’s probably not enough demand for it. A Continental 787-8 will have about 110 less seats than that aircraft. Continental could also toss one of its 777-200ERs on the route, but that too is bigger. Plus the lower costs on the 787-8 help.
IAH-AKL certainly looks good from an alliance perspective, as it connects two Star hubs, and it really does give a boost to options to getting to/from New Zealand. Of course LAX offers plenty of connections but Continental’s Houston hub opens up a bunch of connections to the East. And, as you can see on this Airliners.net thread, some connections are actually shorter. And here’s a nice perk for travelers going to Washington or New York – since Houston is within those perimeters, passengers can connect to DCA or LGA easily, where LAX would require flights to IAD or JFK. (Unless if one switched to Alaska at LAX.) Plus it offers good connecting service down to Latin America. Continental also says this can work for Europe, too, but I’m not sure how popular that’ll be.
Meanwhile – I think we can see this as a preview of coming attractions when it comes to the 787 route. If you take a look at this slide (pictured below) from this investor presentation – the 787 does offer some nice cost performance relative to the 777. Granted, the chart is based on a 4,000nm haul, but it probably still looks good on the longer routes, too. So the 787 can replace 777s in under-performing markets, but also open up new ones. It’ll certainly be fun to see what they do with the rest of them.
I believe Air New Zealand once served DFW without long-term success, but IAH for “Continited,” if merger approved, will have more robust feeder network.
The Star hub-to-hub link is the key here. AKL makes perfect sense for UA/CO as it will allow them to offer the whole of Australia, New Zealand and surrounding islands as a one stop service. A much better idea than opening up secondary markets in Australia.
It also could be CO getting their foot in the door in New Zealand. UAL doesn’t fly there either, so I would really hope if the merger goes through, UAL will still keep this flight going.
The 787 was designed to allow more flights like this and it is great to see airlines making use of the Dreamliner.
I would have no problem flying from SEA to IAH, so I could fly a 787 across the Pacific
Definitely an interesting route. I do love the fact that this is a Star-Star Hub connection as others have mentioned, and I wouldn’t mind an ERJ flight to IAH to connect to the 787…
I agree with you on your thinking on the ‘long, thin routes’. The 787 was designed for such routes. They are too long for smaller planes and have too few passengers for big planes. This route is a prime example of what Boeing had in mind when they designed the 787, as Airbus was going for the medium-range, think routes with the A380. I am looking forward to several such new routes to come along. I would fly from IAD to IAH to connect with this one.
Interesting comment from airceo – AKL as a Star connecting hub for Aussie markets.