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Air New Zealand recently announced that they are planning on expanding they're American routes soon. They stated they were looking into Houston, Chicago or Las Vegas. Who do you think the worthy contender is? I feel like Las Vegas should be out, not because it can't support it, but because this route would fit a more economic base than a tourist base. So my choices would be Houston vs Chicago. Now a few points to point out. Houston has expanded their route network drastically in the past 2 years. A few years ago, the only flight from Houston to Asia was Tokyo on United. In 2013, Air China started service Houston to Beijing. 2014, Korean Air began service to Seoul. Than EVA Air announced to begin flights to Taipei in June. About a week later, ANA announced to begin service also starting in June. Also pointing out that Singapore Airlines began a flight in 2008 to Singapore via Moscow. (All Singapore airlines to US makes stops). And pointing that out, Singapore ended their Chicago flight after starting Houston service. This also doesn't include the Middle East where Emirates, Turkish Airlines, and Qatar Airways to Dubai, Istanbul and Doha respectively. So obviously Houston has vastly expanded Asian service in the recent years. Now to talk about Chicago. Chicago already flies to all the destinations in Asia that Houston flies to other than Taipei. Additionally they fly to Shanghai, Hong Kong in east Asia. They fly to Amman in the middle east. And they also fly to India with air India. To Seoul, for example, they fly with Asiana and Korean Air. As well as with many other destinations. The only one in Houston that flies double airline to Asia is service to Tokyo (with United and ANA). So despite Houston rapid growth, Chicago is still a stronger hold to Asian service. So the way I see it, Houston has he edge on growth right now And Chicago has the edge for stronger service. Now let's look at other specs besides airports. Neither city has a huge New Zealander population, but both have some. Houston is a much more ethnically diverse city than Chicago is, however so more people can connect through New Zealand. As well as people from New Zealand connecting through Houston to get to Latin America, as Houston is a strong Latin American gateway. If the service goes to Houston, NZ would have an easier connect to the Southern US. If conencting through Chicago, it would have an easier connect to the Midwest and Great Lakes. So the competition is tough but who do you think deserves the flight. H-town or Chi-town?
Fuel cost wise, Houston and Las Vegas are going to be cheaper. Part of me things that Las Vegas is the wisest, you probably would get a huge influx of "kiwis" flying to Las Vegas on holiday, and Americans would have cheap connection options from other major cities.
Houston and Chicago are both *A hubs. They're better off taking the shorter hop to IAH non-stop, and let the hub system work from there. Plus it allows ANZ to compete against QANTAS new non-stop to Sydney from DFW.
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