This 744 was delivered to Air New Zealand in )ctober 1998 and is pictured taxiing out for departure home, and before it received the 'Lord of the Rings' special colours. The plane went on to fly with Wamos Air, Saudi Arabian and Garuda (all as EC-MDS) before it was wfu and ferried to Roswell (ROW) in January 2021 for storage.

Phew! My only shot of it, taken from the KLM lounge, awaiting my flight back to Amsterdam. By July it had been repainted in the standard livery.

Delivered new 31st Oct 1998 and to N342AS 23rd Oct 2014, then EC-MDS 29th Jan 2015

NZ2 taxies onto stand at Terminal 3 after arriving from AKL via LAX. With an elapsed time of 26h14min, this is one of the longest plane journeys possible. In "Airline to Middle-Earth" scheme.