Air New Zealand 777 aircraft heading to Australian 'boneyard'

Air NZ is shuffling off its wide-body 777 aircraft to the heat of the Australian desert. Chief revenue officer Cam Wallace says the aircraft will go into "deep storage" in Alice Springs. They will join at least $5b worth of planes currently housed at the Asia Pacific Aircraft Storage (APAS). "We just don't see any likelihood of us using them in the next 12 months," said Wallace. He said the value of the planes had to be written off on the airline's balance sheet as the aircraft market globally was "swamped". The writing had been on the wall for the aircraft. The national carrier has eight of the 777-200ER which have an average age of 14 years, and seven 777-300ER with an average age of eight years. Analysts believed the ageing 777-200ERs, which were introduced in 2004 and due to be replaced by the Boeing 787-10, were no longer needed. It was based on an expectation that the airline would be 30% smaller in two years time and international travel may take even longer than that to recover. <br/>