Keys to making history

Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe and group GM Ed Sims demonstrate some of the features of the prototype for the sky couch in economy class. Photo / Natalie Slade

Ed Sims dangles a set of shiny keys in front of me.

They are to the cockpit of Air New Zealand's first 777-300ER. You'd be surprised how many people think they're the ignition keys, he laughs.

It's not every day you buy a new plane, especially one chock-full of new product, and Boeing puts on a good show. After a glittering dinner the previous evening at the futuristic Experience Music Project building in Seattle, we assemble for the formal handover ceremony.

Suddenly, long black curtains are pulled back and there is our airplane. "Happy holidays Air New Zealand," reads a gift tag.

Plane spotters line the security fence to see the latest piece of aluminium off Boeing's production line take its inaugural flight.

Captain Des Grant starts up the engines and, without so much as a backwards glance to its maker, ZK-OKM noses into the winter sky and heads for its South Pacific home.

It's cocktails, canapes and snapshots of the snow-covered Mt St Helens as we make our way to LA.

I read the book titles on the funky wallpaper in the loo: The Insider's Guide to Nude Skiing; The Mile High Club - Tell-All Stories. Someone's got a sense of humour.

Of course we try out cuddle class. It's comfortable, but cozy - you wouldn't want your companion to be a 2m rugby player.

The inflight entertainment system is whizzy. Everything is on your screen - ditching the inflight magazine has saved 77kg of weight, apparently.

Air NZ staff who won a competition to travel on the inaugural flight carry on a singalong well into the night.

We touch down on New Zealand soil for the first time to water jets and a Maori welcome.

Chief executive Rob Fyfe embraces an emotional Sims. There is a sense that we may have just made New Zealand aviation history.