Oblivian:
Ahhh we were wondering why the national service to CHC was putting 787s on.. thats our answer.
Only $40 to upgrade to Business class too. Originally we thought it was due to the upskilling of the pilots from ex Eagle/ATR that were closing on regionals.
787's are on the AKl-CHC route in part because of the crewing issues Air NZ have present with their turboprop fleet. They've significantly cut back ATR flights on the WLG-CHC route and replaced these with A320's - with some of the A320 capacity coming from pulling 2 x daily R/T A320 trips on the AKL-CHC route. I wrote about this a few weeks ago https://traveltalk.nz/news-opinion/airline/air-new-zealand-announces-new-winter-domestic-main-trunk-changes/
These current Dreamliner issues may see those flights pulled.