What do you see as potential new routes to/from AKL in the near future?

What do you see as potential new routes to/from AKL in the near future?

Jakarta? Garuda seems to have gone quiet on its previously-announced return to AKL.

South America? Will Air NZ finally enter the continent with its 787s? Could the new NZ/SQ partnership expand to SIN-South America flights via AKL? China Southern is supposedly considering routing through AKL to Brazil.

New US routes? Dallas, Denver?

Canberra?

Add Chicago or Dallas / Houston to route more passengers closer to final destination, but maybe at the expense of dropping / less frequency to San Francisco 

I sure hope not! SYD->AKL->SFO is a much better route than transiting through LAX. There has been talk to Air NZ switching that route to a 777 in the near future. 

It's already intermittently served by 777s throughout the year, I've done AKL-SFO on 777s a few times in the last few years. I'm sure they'll switch to the 777 once they decide to retire their two remaining 744s which now serve just this one route.

I just booked a flight from BNE to AKL connecting to SFO and got the 777-300 all the way. The return flight from SFO to AKL is also on the 777-300, most of their schedule has the SFO route on 772s and 773s in the coming months

Very interesting. Shall keep an eye out for that. Just looked then for some dates in feb i need to book and all the 772 or 747.

IAH/Houston is more likely, given it's a Star Alliance carrier's hub.

I think the Asian carriers aren't likely to massively expand into AKL - the ones that would go to AKL are already there. Perhaps Garuda might make an entry.

South America is always a possibility, but I think Air New Zealand wants to use the 787s to bring up the standard on its Asian routes like PVG/Shanghai.

If Air NZ were to add a new US destination I think Houston would be most likely, with United providing feed. They did consider Chicago for the 787, but decided against it as it's too far to confidently fly with a full load.

United announced Houston-AKL in 2011 but pulled out. There has been rumour of American Airlines looking at NZ, which would most likely be from Dallas.

I think you're wrong about Asian carriers. Auckland Airport (and the NZ govt) are expecting massive increases of Asian visitors in the next 10 years. I suspect China Eastern and Garuda will announce AKL service within a year. China Eastern is flying charters next month for New Year.