Hand-crafting a touch of class for Air NZ

In the quiet Llantarnam industrial park of Cwmbran, South Wales, just off the M4 and not too far from the small city of Newport, a little part of New Zealand is being moulded and shaped, glued and bolted together.

It is here in a nondescript industrial building, no different from thousands of factories around the world, that the showpiece of Air New Zealand's new long-haul product launch is taking shape.

The Business Premier seat is being made here by the Contour company, which has no qualms about touting itself as the world's leading airline seat designer and builder - after all, they built the seats for Concorde.

Come next year, there will be no more First Class on Air NZ planes. Instead there will be a Business Premier class, with a Pacific Premium class in between, followed by economy class.

Air NZ will be only the second airline to fly the seats, first designed for and installed in Virgin Atlantic's Upper Class. They feature a permanent footrest and aisle access for all.

This leather covered seat is already being featured in wall-to-wall advertising, marketing and promotion by the airline, as it seeks to catch up with its rivals already offering lie-flat business class seats and advanced inflight entertainment systems.

The overhaul of its long-haul service is the last, most expensive and altogether most daunting part of the airline's transformation since it nearly went bankrupt and was bailed out by the taxpayer in 2001.

Back in those dark days, the mere thought of a multi-million aircraft refit plans would have been dismissed - avoiding bankruptcy was more important than comparing new carpet and seats.

But the seats are coming now, taking shape in Wales with Air NZ workers Gavin Balasingam and Jim Kerrigan part of an on-site Kiwi team making sure they are built to specifications.

Both men report a keen interest in the New Zealand job from the Welsh workers - and it is more than the expected rugby interest, as some even want to talk with them about emigrating to the seats' new home.

Here in Wales the team spends about two to three days making each seat, with a complete shipset of 46 seats for a Boeing 747-400 aircraft constructed in two to three weeks.

There is a small sewing room on one side of the building. Any Coronation Street fans would immediately see a similarity with the interior Mike Baldwin's Manchester lingerie factory.

It's here that a group of women (and one, somewhat quieter man) carefully stitch together the leather components of the new seats.

One small piece, used to cover the pop-up arm rest can take at least two hours to sew precisely. (Well at least that's what one of the women said to the supervisor leading a tour group - he gently suggested it could probably take them a lot less time.)

It's delicate work though: "You only get one chance with leather," said one worker.

And it's New Zealand leather these women are carefully stitching together, supplied by Wanganui company Tasman Leather. The technology inside the seats might be new, but there is still a lot of old-school craftwork needed to get it looking right, with Contour workers carefully glueing, stretching and moulding leather on to wood and plastic to create the shape of every seat.

Out on the shop floor, technicians install and test the tiny motors that propel the seat forwards and back, from recline to full-bed mode.

They do not face straight forward, as airline seats do now.

Instead they are fitted to the floor on an angle, or "herring-bone" pattern. While giving premium passenger aisle access, it also means different forces at work in the event of an impact.

Airbags are fitted into the seatbelts of the new seats, ready to activate and protect passengers from injuring themselves on the back of the seat in front.

Passengers using the new seats will be allowed to have them reclined during take off and landing, though not stretched out in "bed-mode".

Passengers do not sleep on the leather surface that is used for sitting. Pushing a button flips the back of the seat over, making the bed from the back of the seat, which has a softer, material covering.

James Langton, president of the Travel Agents Association, said he had yet to see the seats so could not comment on how good they were. But the long-haul refit was long overdue.

"People are used to business class seats like that, so they do expect them when they're paying those sort of levels of airfares to go to Europe or the States - they expect a bed these days. They can get it on Qantas, they can get it on SQ [Singapore Airlines] and get it on Emirates - so come on Air NZ, it's been a bit long coming."

Air NZ is promising that its new inflight entertainment system (with individual screens for all classes) will make flying economy much more attractive. It will allow passengers to stop, pause and fast-forward movies and television shows, while also offering a wider range of music.

Right across the new-look cabins, Air NZ is trying to push a very particular kind of service, something not seen on any other airline.

It is trying to become so inescapably New Zealand in everything it does that travellers walk off the airbridge into the aircraft and immediately feel their time in Aotearoa has begun.

New Zealand wine, New Zealand food, New Zealand movies on the screen, New Zealand cosmetics, New Zealand colours - there will be no doubt which airline you are flying on.

The airline cannot hope to compete with Singapore Airlines, United or Qantas as a leading carrier, so it is trying a different approach.

Inextricably bound to our tourist promotions in Europe, North America and Asia, Air NZ is trying to position itself as the airline of choice to use when flying here on holiday.

Now, thanks in part to the efforts of some cheeky women sitting behind sewing machines in a Welsh industrial park, we'll get to see if it works.

* Chris Daniels travelled to Wales as a guest of Air New Zealand.

Uniforms, menus revamped

* The seats will be progressively installed in Air New Zealand's long-haul aircraft, starting with the $20 million-a-plane refits of the Boeing 747-400 (pictured above). The first 747 is in the hangar now.
* Air NZ is reconfiguring seven of its 747-400s to have 36 Business Premier seats at the front of the main deck and a further 10 on the upper deck, 23 Pacific Premium Economy seats also on the upper deck and 324 Pacific Economy seats on the main deck.
* By December next year, all the airline's long-haul flights will have the new-look service. New uniforms, new menus and wine lists.
* The first route to have the new look will be Auckland-San Francisco. Boeing 747-400 services between Auckland, Los Angeles and London will be the next available from Saturday, November 5.
* From November this year Air NZ is doubling the number of flights it operates between Auckland and San Francisco from three to six return services a week.
* By early 2007, the Air NZ long-haul fleet will be made up of 20 aircraft with 6466 seats - a 20 per cent increase.