aklrno wrote:have a look at NZ route map.I recall TN doing the hub and spoke thing out of PPT. Did it myself a couple of times LAX-PPT-AKL. Don't know if they still do. In some ways NAN is better situated to fly long haul to North American and Asia connecting to medium-short haul to all of Oceana as shown in the last map from planemanofnz. If it works for TN, it should work better for FJ. And the people in Fiji may be the nicest on earth.
The one thing I hated about LAX-PPT-AKL was that I couldn't get any decent sleep because halfway all their planes met in PPT, everyone tramped in to the terminal for 2 hours, then all the planes (5 x A340?) loaded up and continued. A very unpleasant experience. I paid more for LAX-AKL non-stop but I could sleep the whole way.
From Australia, you fly south-east to then fly north-east to got o LAX, SFO, YVR, HOU. Fiji geographically is in much better location than AKL for USA/Canada routes.
http://www.airnztravelagent.com/sites/d ... 0APR15.pdf
Of course there's a lot more traffic between Australia & AKL, than Australia & Nan, but that's no reason NAN can't be a smaller version of AKL hub.
All NAN/LAX (daily) & 2 of 3 weekly NAN/SFO services depart 2130 to 2200, so flights arriving from BNE, SYD + maybe PER, ADL, CBR, MEL(note current ADL & MEL/NAN flights are red eyes & don't connect, except to additional NAN/SFO flights on Tuesdays which depart NAN @ 0700).
Why 0700 ? A time when an A330 was otherwise sitting at NAN & does a fast turnaround at SFO & back to NAN, rather than sunbaking all day.
