Tom H

Air Asia have announced that they'll be returning to New Zealand flying Auckland to the Gold Coast and Kuala Lumpur. It's another jet star in my opinion where you get what you pay for, but one of the better low budget value ones. Far safer than some of the cheap Indonesian airliners.

American Airlines are scheduled to start flying to Los Angeles from Auckland in the early afternoon, arriving first thing in the morning at LA. Whilst I have my own opinion on US Airlines, American are part of the one world alliance for frequent flyer miles. Bringing the price similar to Qantas should result in flights being far cheaper to LA than before.

United Airlines are returning to fly to San Francisco. Generally they offer some very good value flights from Australia to the States ($835 I've seen to Las Vegas return).

Finally Jet Star will start flying to Rarotonga this year.

There is also talk of Vietnam Airlines flying to Auckland from Ho Chi Minn. For passengers flying from regional airports to Auckland, AA codeshares with Qantas and Jet Star so there shouldn't be much difference in the price. United codeshare with Air Auckland so it'll be interesting to see what their prices to regional destinations from San Fran are.

BEVS

Very useful info TomH.