In an age when in-flight meals are still hit-or-miss and getting through airport security can feel like a full-body workout, Air New Zealand has decided to bypass the old-school turbulence and steer straight into the jetstream of artificial intelligence — in style, mind you, and with OpenAI riding shotgun.
Yes, dear reader, the national carrier of Aotearoa has become the first airline in the country to ink a formal partnership with OpenAI — that Silicon Valley whizz-kid behind ChatGPT — marking a bold new chapter not just in the airline’s digital playbook but, dare we say, in the way we might soon experience aviation itself.
Forget the clunky chatbots of yesteryear. This is enterprise-grade AI, done Kiwi-style: clever, cautious, and cheeky enough to know it’s breaking new ground.
Not Just a Tech Upgrade — It’s a Cockpit Revolution
Under this freshly polished agreement, Air New Zealand gains direct access to OpenAI’s full suite of tools — including the airline’s in-house twist on ChatGPT Enterprise, adorably dubbed Companion AI. Picture it: a tireless digital colleague who doesn’t nick your teabags or steal your stapler, yet somehow manages to know everything.
And it’s not some top-floor, ivory-tower pilot program either. This AI co-pilot is already in the cabin — rolled out to 3,500 corporate staff across the business — helping them plan, troubleshoot, and respond at a clip that would make your average frequent flyer gasp louder than a surprise upgrade to Business.
Early uses include upgrading customer self-service tools (say goodbye to menu hell), streamlining aircraft maintenance planning, and enabling quicker, safer, data-driven decisions behind the scenes. It’s the kind of innovation that says, “We’re not just flying planes — we’re flying smart.”
Enter Nikhil Ravishankar, Air New Zealand’s Digital Navigator
Chief Digital Officer Nikhil Ravishankar leads this skyward charge — a man who speaks about AI with the calm conviction of someone who’s seen the wiring under the dashboard and decided it’s worth a bet.
“We see AI as an opportunity for our team at Air New Zealand and a way to improve experiences for our customers,” Ravishankar said, sounding not unlike a man preparing to turn a Boeing 787 into a thinking machine.
“It helps us solve problems faster, serve our customers better, and reimagine how work gets done.”
“Reimagine how work gets done” might sound like boardroom fluff, but it’s backed by action in this case. The airline has already cooked up over 1,500 custom GPTs — purpose-built AI assistants, fine-tuned to handle everything from internal comms to ticketing triage.
Not bad for a company that still offers complimentary cookie options.
Meanwhile, in San Francisco…
Across the Pacific, OpenAI is giving the airline a standing ovation. Oliver Jay, the company’s Managing Director of International, praised Air New Zealand’s pace and ambition.
“They’ve been particularly impressive in how quickly they’ve developed over 1,500 custom GPTs,” Jay said. “Their focus on innovation and responsibility shows how the aviation sector can adopt advanced tools in practical ways.”
High praise from a tech giant rarely known for waxing lyrical over the skies of the Southern Hemisphere.
GPTs, for Those Playing at Home
Now, if you’ve just Googled “What is a custom GPT?” — fret not. You’re not alone.
A custom GPT is a tailor-made digital assistant built atop the ChatGPT platform. You give it a job — from managing FAQs to digesting maintenance reports — and it performs like a tireless junior exec with encyclopaedic knowledge, zero gossip habits, and no sick leave. You can even tune its personality, if you like your AI polite, dryly humorous, or bursting with facts like an overzealous trivia host.
And here’s the kicker: building one doesn’t take a computer science degree. You’re halfway there if you can navigate your inbox and survive an Excel spreadsheet.
Grounded in Ethics — Not Just Code
Now, lest we all start picturing a future where aircraft are flown by chipper robots with New Zealand accents, rest assured: Air New Zealand is treading carefully. The airline’s commitment to responsible and ethical AI is as firm as its landing gear.
This isn’t innovation for innovation’s sake. There’s governance, transparency, and a clear-eyed understanding that passengers still expect a human smile at the gate — not just a digital one.
From Legacy Carrier to Digital Trailblazer
For an airline that’s long been known for its quirky safety videos and cheeky in-flight banter, this move into the AI fast lane feels both natural and necessary. While some legacy carriers struggle with digital inertia, Air New Zealand is rewriting the flight manual — and doing so with the sort of steady hand and forward vision that gives the entire industry something to chew on (besides peanuts).
More importantly, it’s doing all this without forgetting the passenger at the centre of the journey — a rare feat in an industry that sometimes forgets we’re not all just numbers in a booking system.
Final Boarding Call
Will this new AI co-pilot transform the way we fly? Time will tell. But the signs are good from where Peter sits (firmly in Row 4A, thanks).
This isn’t just another PR line about “digital transformation.” It’s a living, breathing shift — and if it continues with the same care and character we’ve seen so far, passengers might just find that flying with Air New Zealand becomes more personal, more responsive, and yes — perhaps even a touch more delightful.
If nothing else, we can all look forward to a future where “please hold” is banished forever, and your questions are answered faster than you can say, “Kia ora, can I get an upgrade?”
By Michelle Warner
