I Flew on Air New Zealand’s 17-Hour Nonstop Flight From New York to Auckland—And the New Route Is a Game Changer

It is not a popular opinion, but I maintain agency that a more time flight is additional comfy than a little something shorter. More specifically, I’ll acquire something 10 several hours or far more around the dreaded five to 9-hour range. I was not fussed, consequently, about how prolonged I would be onboard Air New Zealand’s inaugural flight from New York to Auckland, debuting as the fourth longest flight in the globe, inspite of most people’s shock when I instructed them it is 17 hours and 35 minutes of flight time “What will you do?” they questioned, incredulously.

“I’ll just commit,” is often my favourite respond to. I’ll get into comfy clothes, I will determine entire box sets to finish, I will provide a good deal of reading through resources that will probable by no means make it out of the bag. But extra than my willingness to lean into, no—*embrace—*a hyper-long flight, was my eagerness of accomplishing so on Air New Zealand. This airline’s routes stitched together my expat daily life expanding up in Wellington, New Zealand’s capital, to that of my prolonged family members on the East Coast of the U.S. Flying among these two points was an yearly certainty substantially like Christmas or a birthday. And I produced a fondness for the airline that led me to declare to anybody who’d pay attention that my getaway commences when I action on to an Air New Zealand flight, not off it. The food! Usually thoughtfully highlighting New Zealand’s have delicacies. The attendants! Perky and kind in a way that felt accurate to the Kiwi spirit. And a individual favorite—the airline’s own individually wrapped challenging lollies handed out up and down the aisles before we start off to descend, as the flight’s way of allowing you know that soon we’ll be on land (and to stow that tray desk).

The only bummer of the whole issue? The unavoidable layover in Los Angeles and that killer domestic leg in between the East and West Coast that, certainly, fell into the dreaded zone. The creation of this New York-Auckland nonstop route solved the only two authentic concerns I experienced with making this sort of a journey.

As the flagship carrier for just one of the world’s most isolated countries, Air New Zealand is familiar with a detail or two about long haul. For this one—the fourth-longest flight in the world—they upped even their own match. Air New Zealand has preferred to fly the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner with a overall capacity of 215 passengers for the route. The aircraft was not as roomy as the even bigger 787-10 Dreamliner jet, for illustration, but clever cabin design and style together with wallpapered restrooms does make it really feel far more like a location you could see yourself sitting down in for 17-moreover hours. Air New Zealand also declared before this 12 months that it strategies to exchange its existing business enterprise-class seats with more roomy accommodations, setting up in 2024.

As I walked the jet bridge onto the aircraft I discovered the airline’s signature black-painted plane visible even in the 10 p.m. New York City darkness. Earth-class crew outfitted in black and purple customized attire and satisfies with common Maori koru styles printed on top greeted passengers with champagne flutes as we stepped onboard. Seats had been crisply laid with plump pillows and blankets, and a dopp kit whose black and pink coloring matched the crew. As I settled into my business enterprise-class seat, the display glowed again an graphic of a waterfall in a rain forest, with the phrases Kia Ora—New Zealand’s classic Maori salutation, and a practical phrase to learn just before you land—scripted around the best.