Carry on: Premium economy goes global, Emirates gets more in A380s

Star Alliance offers first RTW fares in premium economy
Air New Zealand’s round-the-world (RTW) trips using Star Alliance now include premium economy. Although premium economy is not available on all Star Alliance airlines (eg, United in the US), this class is a savvy compromise between cost and comfort.

The overall cost varies depending on the starting point and route but falls into three major pricing bands based on the distance: up to 29,000 miles; up to 34,000 miles and up to 39,000 miles.

Apart from Air New Zealand, 10 other Star Alliance airlines are offering the new RTW package. They are: Air Canada, Air China, EVA Air (Taiwan), Singapore Airlines, ANA (Japan), Lufthansa (Germany), LOT Polish Airlines, SAS (Scandinavia), Thai Airways and Turkish Airlines.

The RTW fares allow up to 15 stops provided you cross both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans once and generally track either east or west, except for within the same continent.

How to create a RTW trip
One sample itinerary starting in Auckland would look like this:

• Auckland to Los Angeles with Air New Zealand
• Los Angeles to Chicago with United (economy)
• Chicago to New York with United (economy)
• New York (Newark) to Copenhagen with SAS
• Copenhagen to Frankfurt with SAS 
• Frankfurt to Beijing with Lufthansa 
• Beijing to Singapore with Singapore Airlines 
• Singapore to Sydney with Singapore Airlines
• Sydney to Auckland with Air New Zealand

That comes in at just 26,144 miles, leaving room for some more destinations within Asia, Europe or North America without going into the next band.

Emirates drops first class suites from some A380s
Emirates is forging ahead with plans for two-class Airbus A380s. In this configuration, the first class suites, with their showers, will go and business class will shrink in favour of more seats for economy passengers.

Economy seating for 120 passengers will replace the 14 first class suites at the front of the upper deck as well as half the business class cabin. The inflight bar and lounge for business class passengers will remain at the very back of the upper deck.

The first two-class A380s will debut on the Dubai-Copenhagen and Dubai-Bangkok services from December 1. The Dubai-London Gatwick and Dubai-Kuala Lumpur services will follow on on January 1, 2016.

Singapore reduces some A350 orders
Singapore Airlines (SIA) has agreed to a request from Airbus to release seven of its A350-900 widebodied aircraft orders. This reduces SIA's A350 orders to 63 but the purchase options for 20 A350-900s are unchanged. SIA has also brought forward the deliveries of some other A350-900s it has on order and can extend the leases on some A330-300s it has in service.

Route news of the week
Air New Zealand will increase flights on the Auckland-Brisbane route from 14 to 16 weekly from December 11 to March 26, 2016. British Airways will provide the first A380 service to Vancouver on May 1, 2016. The A380s will leave from London Heathrow. Thai Airways will end its four-times weekly service to Los Angeles on October 25, its sole US route. The flight from Bangkok operates through Seoul Incheon. The Bangkok-Rome service will end on the same date.

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