Air New Zealand B787 deliveries on track, two by June

By Andrew Curran.

Air New Zealand is on track to receive two GE-powered 787-9s by the end of June and the refurbishment of its older Rolls Royce-powered B787-9s is due to be completed by the end of calendar 2026.

The first of five new B787-9s will arrive in April and the second in June, with entry into service soon after. Air New Zealand has five B787-9s and five B787-10s on order. They will complement the existing fourteen B787-9s.

Air New Zealand CFO Richard Thomson told analysts on February 26, 2026, that the two new B787-9s will be debt financed and that the airline was “in the final stages of a very competitive RFP process that we expect to deliver attractive funding costs.”

Air New Zealand anticipates deliveries of new B787s through to 2031.

“The retrofit program (of the existing B787s) is well underway, with half of those aircraft now complete” added Thomson. “We expect the programme to be finished in full by the end of calendar 2026.”

This timeline aligns with Air New Zealand’s original completion date, although the retrofits of the initial aircraft took longer than planned.

The new B787s differ from Air New Zealand’s existing B787s in two key respects. Firstly, the new jets will be more premium seat heavy and include 94 business and premium economy seats.

Secondly, the incoming aircraft will use GEnx-1B engines, rather than the problem-plagued Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines used by the existing B787s.

Currently, three B787-9s are parked – two at Alice Springs (ASP) and one at Auckland (AKL). However, the airline expects two to return to service before the end of June following engine maintenance.

Air New Zealand is also experiencing similar engine-related problems with some of its A321-200neo aircraft.

Thomson says Air New Zealand received around NZD55 million (USD33 million) in compensation from engine manufacturers during the first half of the financial year.

“That equates to about one third of the financial impact of these issues,” he said.

Air New Zealand posts half year loss

The engine problems and consequent out-of-service aircraft contributed to Air New Zealand's after-tax net loss of NZD40 million (USD24 million) for the six months to December 2025.

“That is not where we want to be and reflects a very challenging operating environment,” CEO Nikil Ravishankar told analysts.

“While capacity was broadly flat in the half (year), we are still only operating at around 90% of pre-Covid capacity almost four years on and have up to eight aircraft grounded at times.”

“Our internal estimate is that we missed at least NZD90 million of earnings net of compensation that the business would have made if our fleet had operated as intended.”

“When you run a subscale network, the economics deteriorates quickly. You lose utilisation, you carry more disruption cost, and you end up doing things you wouldn’t choose to do in a normal operating environment.”

Ravishankar said the airline was planning for some capacity lift (around 3 – 4%) in the second half of the financial year, although this was contingent on improved engine reliability and the delivery of the two B787s.

The airline generated operating revenue of NZD3.4 billion (USD2 billion) in the last six months of 2025, slightly up on the previous six months. Air New Zealand expects earnings for the second half of this financial to be broadly in line with, or modestly below, this week’s number.

But analysts were told that the outlook remains subject to material uncertainty, including engine return schedules, the timing and quantum of engine compensation, and continued volatility across key input costs and demand conditions

“We won’t put volume into the system that we can’t operate with confidence,” said Ravishankar.

“We’re operating in an environment with some significant challenges, capacity constraints, and a slower than expected recovery in domestic demand have created real pressures on financial performance and our response can’t be to wait and hope that conditions improve.”

“We don’t plan on hope.”

Photo: AI-Generated

Contact the writer: andrew@aerosouthpacific.com